Sometimes So Sweet, Sometimes So Lonely
by missparker85
Summary: Ellie and Daniel have been at this outpost for almost six months now. (Follows the story "At The Moment Braver Still")


_The further I go_

_More letters from home never arrive_  
_And I'm alone_  
_All of the way_  
_All of the way_  
_Alone and alive_

Rowing Song - Patty Griffin

Simon walks a quarter mile to the mailbox. It's warm today, the end of summer and all he can smell is cut grass. It's in his clothes, in his hair, under his nails. The lawnmower - the riding kind - had tried to die three times. He'd rigged it up enough to finish the job, but he'll have to go into town for parts to fix it before the next big mow.

He pulls the mail from the box and looks down the road both directions. It's quiet and he's glad for it. The only cars that pass are travelers who do not stop or the occasional neighbor heading into town. But this land is owned by farming families and most of those families are older. Simon doesn't want to socialize and it's just fine with them.

The mail is folded together and fortified with a rubber band and he doesn't bother to look at it as he heads back to the house. He takes his time, letting his muscles stretch. Tomorrow is another long day. He'll need to get up on the roof and do some patching before the fall rains come and ice everything over. The old farm house comes into view as he rounds the bend. The kitchen window is the only one with a light on. The sun is just setting; it's not quite dark yet.

When he steps onto the porch, the old wood creaks. Inside, it already smells like roasting beef even though dinner is a ways off yet. That will make the next hour tortuous. He sets the mail on the table and pauses to listen. For a moment all is quiet but then he hears it, the soft hum. A church hymn this time and though Simon is not a religious man, he's heard it enough times to recognize the tune.

On the wings of a snow white dove...

He wonders if she just likes the tune or if she thinks of the words as she hums. Simon thinks briefly of his sister, of how she would know the answer to such an idle query.

He turns the corner into the kitchen and sees her, Caroline, kneading bread dough.

"Anything good?" she asks.

"Nah," he says. "Just junk."

She smiles and goes back to her work. He goes upstairs to wash up.

Caroline is already in bed when he notices the mail again. He hesitates in shutting off the porch light and picks it up. Pulls the rubber band away and sorts through it quickly. Advertisements, a few bills, an envelope from Washington. He gets several a month but only one or two a year ever interest him enough to merit a response. Anything that comes in a little white one won't be worth it.

Usually they are just bland, open invitations to different government agencies and he has no interest in that.

There's a small blue envelope addressed by his mother. He opens it and reads the card quickly.

He drops the mail again and flicks off the porch light. He doesn't bother to lock the door and climbs the stairs for bed.

oooo

"What do we do?" Ellie asks.

"It's up to you," Daniel says. "We can go or we can stay. If you want, I can go and make your excuses."

"That's not fair," Ellie says, shaking her head. "You going without me."

"I'd do it," Daniel says. She believes him.

"I mean," Ellie says, biting at her bottom lip. "Eventually we're going to have to go back."

"Yes," Daniel says. "Eventually."

"I just... is it better to go now? Before?" she asks.

"I'm not sure there is a better," Daniel says. "Jack is going to..."

"Yeah," Ellie says. "Dad won't like this."

"No," Daniel says.

"I thought... I'd write a letter, maybe? Explaining it all and send it through the databurst but I don't... maybe this sort of thing is better in person?" Ellie asks. She shakes her head and sinks down into her chair. They are in her lab and Daniel perches on the desk.

"This was our choice," Daniel says. "You don't owe anyone an explanation. We did what we thought was right."

"Oh yeah," Ellie says. "That's why this is an easy choice and I have no qualms about it whatsoever."

Daniel squints at her.

"Please don't call me Jack Jr. in your head," she snaps.

"Okay, look," Daniel says. She can feel him changing tactics. "We have a couple months to decide. Your mother knew it would take time to arrange travel back to Earth. There's no reason we decide tonight."

Ellie can agree with this. She calls up the message and reads it again. It is simple.

Please come home for Daddy's birthday, we miss you, bring Daniel.

Databursts don't leave a lot of room and their communications tend to be short and sweet this far from Earth's solar system. Ellie and Daniel have been at this outpost for almost six months now. Ellie had spent a lot of time on Thor's ship, had learned all she could but he'd been called away and he'd left her here, with Daniel, to work. Ellie prefers it anyway, the solitude. There are only a dozen other Asgard geneticists on the station and everyone leaves the Tau'ri to themselves.

Daniel spends his days, usually, studying the Asgard database. They share their meals together and drift apart again. They share a small block of rooms, no bigger than his apartment in D.C. had been. Two bedrooms, a lavatory, and a common space. They have gotten used to sharing the tight quarters. Ellie spends most of her time in her lab, anyway.

"You should get some rest," Daniel says now.

"I have work," she says.

"You can't..." he says and takes a breath. "You can't pull all nighters anymore."

"It's space," she says. "Night is relative."

"Why are you fighting me on this?" he asks.

He's frustrated and doesn't understand. Honestly, she doesn't either. She logs off her work station.

"You're right," she says. "Sorry."

They walk down the corridor and he keeps a hand on her back, steady and warm.

oooo

"It would be nice if the kids were both home." Sam looks up only briefly from her list - just long enough to gauge his reaction. He doesn't give her anything but a noncommittal shrug. "When was the last time they were both home together?" she presses.

"Christmas," he says, finally. He's watching the news on the big TV, the one he bought a few years ago that takes up half the living room. They were never going to stay in this house, they were always going to look for something bigger, always going to move when the kids got a little older but they never did.

"Two years ago," she says.

"What happened to last year?" he asked, furrowed brows.

"Remember? We were on P3L-927 for that diplomatic-"

"Ugh, yeah," he says. "God. We are the worst at being retired."

"I'm going to ask them to come."

"Honey," Jack says. "Do you really think-"

"75 is a big year," she says. "They'll come home for your birthday. I really think they will. I do."

Jack knows his wife and her mind is made up. He doesn't want a party but he does like to see his kids, so he doesn't argue.

"Daniel, too?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"Okay," he says. Maybe a party could be worth it.

Life with Jack had been somewhat of an adjustment. Before she'd gotten pregnant, they'd been mostly long distance and then two babies, wham-bam and it's only been a little while that it's just the two of them, alone, day in and day out.

It's not a bad transition. Less food to buy and less laundry and Quinn keeps them good company, though he is getting older too. Simon used to run him daily, but now Quinn is content with the occasional walk. They are old, children grown, nest empty.

Though, of course, they are aging well. Suspiciously well. Jack is turning 75 but he looks fifteen years younger and she has some wrinkles around her eyes and more belly weight than she likes, but she doesn't feel 60. She feels like she could still go through the gate.

They don't. Only sometimes, rarely, for diplomatic purposes. For public relations.

This morning, Sam wakes first and puts on the kettle for her tea and dumps decaf into the filter for Jack. She reads the front page of the paper and then puts a skillet onto the stove. Bacon frying brings Jack downstairs. He kisses her cheek and pours coffee into his mug.

They eat breakfast side by side with the crossword puzzle between them.

"What's on the calendar for today, boss?" he asks.

"I thought you were going to do the gutters?"

"Okay," he agrees easily enough.

"I was thinking of working in the garden," she says. "We can have leftover stew for lunch."

She would have never thought that years of running from gate to gate, fighting the Goa'uld, the Jaffa, the Ori would result in lazy days of leftovers and yard work in their golden years. But it feels like a coup, a reward. Otherwise, what had they even been fighting for?

Jack fills in 26 down in his blue pen and she twists to kiss his shoulder when he stills.

oooo

Simon actually thinks about his sister a lot, especially when the government men come knocking on his door. She was always better at kindly sending people away. Simon just tends to tell them to fuck off and slams the door in their faces.

Usually they send nerds in suits who try to appeal to his intelligence, his natural curiosity, his desire to solve puzzles that no one else can.

Today it's a man and a woman in United States Air Force uniforms standing on his dusty porch.

"Mr. Carter-O'Neill," the man says.

"Not interested," Simon cuts him off.

"But-" The woman says.

"Call Rodney McKay," Simon says. He pulls open the narrow drawer in the table by the door where a stack of McKay's business cards sit. He hands one across the threshold and hesitantly, finally, the woman takes it. "He'll fix whatever you broke and do it a lot cheaper than I will."

Simon shuts the door in their face.

It takes a couple moments but finally, he hears them walking back down the squeaky wooden porch steps. They should have saved themselves the trip but the government has never been shy about wasting money especially where the Stargate program is concerned.

And it isn't like he never helps. His mother sends him emails all the time "asking for his opinion" on something or asking if he would have "solved something differently." It's her way of reaching out, of trying to keep him connected to her life. Simon wishes she was more like other mothers, asking for grandchildren instead of complex equations, but Simon has learned that from Sam Carter it's best to just take what she has to give and not hope for anything more.

His mother is not a cold or a distant woman but to Simon she has always felt far away. Like looking at her through glass or underwater. It's hard to imagine her growing him in her body, feeding him at her breast, holding him when he was frightened though he knows she did all of those things.

Ellie used to assure him that Sam loved him but Ellie has been gone for a long time now. Simon is on his own.

He waits a while to be sure the uniforms are really gone and then he goes around back and heads toward the barn. Above him, the sky's so blue that it makes him ache. These are the things he wants to tell his sister about. He writes her little postcards in his head.

Ellie, do you remember the blue of the Stargate just before you step through? I look up and see that every day.

She never writes back, though he always hesitates just for a moment to see if she'll answer.

oooo

Daniel doesn't know what to make of her changing body, that much is clear. They've endured many changes together, but this is a lot for him to process. Ellie tries to be patient and give him all the time he needs but she can't stop herself from growing. And they can't stop time, can't stop her father's birthday from fast approaching, can't stop the trip. They can cancel it, of course, but there's no good reason. Daniel misses Earth - blue skies and green trees and Starbucks with drive-thru windows.

Daniel has not left her side since he took Simon and her to Thor's ship for the summer all those years ago. He deserves a latte.

She doesn't want to go back to Earth - she likes the work she does out here, but she has given him plenty of opportunities to retreat. He never has. A little bit, he's running from his past - his dead wife and her lost home world, a less than supportive government, Vala and the baby that just couldn't grow.

Sometimes Daniel thinks about Vala when he looks at Ellie, especially now, four months in when she's really starting to show, but he's never wished she was Vala instead of Ellie. Not once. For that, Ellie is profoundly grateful.

But he does carry some confusion where she is concerned. She hasn't called him 'Uncle' since he took her into space but in a way, they are family. In a way, this baby shouldn't be. Created in a lab, crafted carefully for specific genetic traits, implanted with the knowledge that one day the child will be expected to help the Asgard truly survive and flourish through sexual reproduction.

Ellie can recall the bitter resentment of being born simply to bring a people their next evolutionary step but she has learned now that life is what you make it and her son will learn this lesson, too. She will birth him, take his DNA, raise him and send him off into the universe, master of his own fate. The Asgard will benefit and Ellie will continue her research. She has it all planned out.

Daniel thinks dark thoughts about the boy she is growing, though he doesn't voice them. He worries being created in a lab will bring him into existence somehow colder than if they'd created him by rutting about in a bed somewhere. He knows that Ellie knows his thoughts, so she doesn't bother to point out that she, herself, was created in a lab as well. Daniel finds her to be cold and growing colder and he maybe isn't wrong. But disconnecting from and then abandoning the world that raised her has brought her good things, enough that she doesn't waste time fretting over her emotional shut down. Daniel has enough feelings for the both of them and she relies on him to be her emotional compass, to tell her when she is taking something too far.

And if she disagrees, it is not difficult to manipulate him into agreement.

She doesn't like to do it and doesn't often try, but the pros of this baby far outweigh the cons and she is certain that Daniel will love his son no matter what.

She's gotten good at this new, developing skill and she's not worried about convincing her mother or father or anyone they encounter along the way. But she is worried about Simon. His brain is as complex and hard to navigate as her own. If he wants to, Simon could unravel everything by simply tugging on a single thread. All she can do is hope he's still as apathetic as he was as a teenager.

Daniel comes into her lab, the doors swooshing open to announce his entrance. She looks up and he shrugs.

"Gate," he says.

It's a long trip back by Stargate because they are so far out but Thor can't always spare ships like ferries. Ellie bites her lip.

"All right," she says. "Then we should leave at least a week in advance." They'll have to make several stops and it's better to allow time for unknown variables.

"Come on," he says. "You need to eat."

Six months ago, she would have argued but now she follows him, starving already. For the most part, they don't talk about her parents but as they walk toward their living quarters, he sends her a memory of her mother while pregnant, standing in Stargate Command, arguing with her father about something. It's unclear what because it's Daniel's memory and the focus is all on her mom, on her wide hips and the weight of her belly. The way a piece of her hair has slipped out of her french braid and curls around her neck.

Ellie isn't Sam, but she is the closest thing Daniel can get. She slows down a little. Daniel murmurs an apology and they keep walking. He can't always control what he sends her; she can't control how he feels.

He fumbles around for a new subject.

"Are you sure the Stargate won't hurt the baby?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

For the first time, Ellie feels the first wisp of worry. What if, when it comes time, Daniel won't want to come back with her?

oooo

Simon leaves Caroline on the farm. He tells her it's government work and she believes him because she is sweet and open-hearted and trusting. He flies to Denver and rents a car, a little four door tin can. He drives home.

His mother has said over the telephone that Ellie is coming but he has trouble believing it. If Ellie never came back to Earth, Simon wouldn't be surprised. How she manages to keep Daniel is a little more perplexing but it's Ellie - she's capable of anything.

It's almost 8:00pm when Simon pulls into the driveway. Dad's old junker of a pickup truck is still there and Mom's hybrid, too. There are lights on in the house and it looks warm and inviting in a way it never did when he was younger. He gets out, slips on his jacket, shoulders his bag, walks up the steps.

He never misses this place when he is gone, but he finds himself oddly pleased to have returned.

He knocks and then, feeling silly, just opens the door. He can hear the TV, the hum of the dishwasher running.

"Hello?" he calls. He seems his mom first, coming from the kitchen with yellow rubber gloves on.

"Hey!" she says. "Oh, honey! Hi!"

She hugs him, getting his back a little damp in the process. After just a moment of hesitation, he hugs back. They stand, embracing in the narrow front hall for several long seconds.

"Hi," he says after a while. Jack finally comes in, leaning on a cane. "Dad?"

"Nah, I'm fine," he says. They shake hands but it's friendly and warm.

"How was your flight?" Sam asks. "You hungry?"

"It was... fine, I'm fine," he says. "I'm glad I came."

"Your old room is ready for you," Sam says. "If you're tired."

He is tired. Travel makes him weary and the Denver airport is such a large hub, always crammed with short-tempered travelers and large groups of people tire him out. But it's too early for sleep. He carries his bag upstairs and spends a few minutes looking around the old room. It's a little different but still largely the same.

Downstairs, he sits on the sofa. His father is in his easy chair. His mom brings them both a bottle of cold beer and they watch the football game.

"Broncos are having a shit year," Jack says.

"How is Teal'c taking that?" Simon asks.

"Well, not a lot of Broncos games televised on Chulak," Sam laughs. "But he'd hate it."

"He's coming for the party?" Simon inquires.

"Yeah," Jack says. His mother pats his knee. Simon looks at her hand fondly.

"And Ellie?"

"We think so," Sam says. "She doesn't... mostly we talk to Daniel, but he seemed enthusiastic about coming."

"Enthusiastic," Jack mutters. They fall silent, watching a muddled play. "Fucking Tebow."

"Jack," Sam scolds.

"Kid couldn't outrun a Jaffa," Jack complains.

"He doesn't have to," Sam says. "Simon, tell us about you."

"Nothing new," Simon says. "Fixin' up the farm."

"You haven't taken a job in a while," she says. She's worried about him making money.

"I make ends meet," he says. "You don't have to check up on me."

"You're my son," she says. "Anyway, McKay gloats when you send him work."

"He's just smart enough to totally miss the point," Simon says.

From the recliner, Jack says nothing, but smirks.

oooo

Ellie prefers not to stop at the Alpha site - prefers not to rely on the United States government in any way, but Daniel plotted the course. They step through to the Alpha site and Ellie hears the wormhole fizzle out behind them. This is Stargate number four. Earth's will make five. She feels a little sick to her stomach, though is reluctant to blame it on gate travel. Scientifically, it should not hurt her. Her roiling stomach may be psychological or unrelated to anything but the developing fetus within.

"Dr. Jackson, welcome to the Alpha site," someone says. Ellie works hard to block everyone out, unused now to the din of other humans around her. Daniel recognizes their greeter, though. It's easy to forget how long Daniel has been in this program, to forget that he still receives a paycheck from them, though he has done little consulting for some time. Her father must manage Daniel's money - Ellie never thinks about something as trivial as money anymore.

She may not even have a penny to her name.

Daniel makes pleasantries with their welcome party and then looks down at Ellie. "You okay?" he asks. He thinks she looks a little green.

"Maybe some rest," she admits.

It's easy enough to arrange. Daniel leaves her in a little room on a little cot and goes to get something to eat. She doesn't think she'll be able to sleep in this unfamiliar place with such noise, but she dozes right off anyway.

When she wakes up, it's because Daniel is back, though he hasn't come in. He's standing just outside the door, arguing with someone. After a moment, she realizes that someone is Cameron Mitchell - of course, the Alpha site.

They are arguing about her. She doesn't bother trying to read their minds, she can hear them quite clearly with her ears.

"...just show up with their kid after five years like this, Jackson, yeah, I think there's gonna be a scene!"

"It hasn't been five years, Cam, it's been two," Daniel says.

"Two years ago you were her uncle, just like me."

"It isn't like that," Daniel insists.

"I know, you explained, but first impressions are hard to shake... I mean, you were here, what, ten minutes before I overheard one of my airmen talking about you knocking up General O'Neill's kid!"

"I didn't!" he says. "I know who she is and I know it's unorthodox but we can explain. Sam did the same thing once and she was a hero for it."

"Oh yeah," Cam snorts. "You two are a couple of Sam and Jacks. Yup, that's the argument I'd go with."

"Cam-"

"Dumbass," Cam says. "Jack O'Neill is going to murder you and then Sam is going to take a shit on your corpse for what you've done to that girl."

Ellie sits up and lets herself adjust to the reorientation. She pushes to her feet and opens the door. Both men turn to look at her. They both think shit at the same time in the same way.

"Hi, Cameron," Ellie says, ignoring the way he looks at her stomach before meeting her eyes. She's thin enough that she doesn't carry the weight in a way that is easy to hide. "I see you've made General. Congratulations."

"Thank you," he says. Cameron's sense of manners keeps him pleasant. "You look good, Ellie."

"Thank you," she says. "Daniel, too, don't you think?"

Cam glances at Daniel who no longer looks his age, either. That lucky byproduct of her genetic extraction procedure.

"He does," Cam says.

"Nothing a little shit on his corpse won't ruin," she says, her voice going cold. It breaks the odd tension, though, and they all start to speak freely.

"Eleanor-" Daniel snaps, as if the name of her dead grandmother will somehow shut her up.

"Sister, you have got to know that what you've done here is gonna go over like a lead balloon," Cam says.

"I wasn't ever going to get their permission," Ellie says calmly. "So why ask for it?"

Cam whistles, piercing and slow and the noise makes her skin crawl. "They aren't going to like it," Cam says.

"No," Ellie says. "Daniel made that perfectly clear and, you may remember, General Mitchell-"

"Ouch," Cam says indignantly.

"That they are my parents and I know them, too," she finishes.

Cam sighs. "All right," he says, giving up. "It's your funeral, kiddo."

"On some planets, a new life is cause for celebration," Ellie says. Her words make Cam feel a twist in his gut.

"I'm sorry," he says. "It is good to see you."

Daniel steps in, holds out a paper bag to her. "I brought you some food."

She takes it, peers inside. A sandwich, a bottle of water, an apple, and a bag of Lays potato chips. She thinks of several snide comments but it's not Daniel she's mad at.

"Thanks," she says. "When do we leave?"

"An hour," says Daniel. "Cam is scheduled to come with us."

"Hooray," she deadpans and then turns and goes back to the cot, letting the door shut on both of them. Daniel follows her in after a moment. She doesn't want to talk about it, already feeling quite defensive as she chews through the turkey sandwich. But Daniel is her companion, her partner, her best friend. He sits next to her and drapes one arm over her shoulders. He is warm and solid and quiet in just the right way.

She finishes her sandwich and then holds the apple in her hands.

"I hate Earth," she says, finally, her voice breaking on the name of her home world.

"I know," Daniel says, his cheek against her hair.

oooo

It is the day before the party, and Jack gets a list from his wife a mile long.

"But it's my party," Jack complains. "Why do I have to work?"

Sam doesn't answer with anything other than an eyeroll.

"I see," he murmurs, eyeing the list.

"Let Simon drive you," Sam instructs. "You have to take the truck."

"I can drive," Jack says.

"Dr. Miller says otherwise," she says. "Not for at least two more weeks."

His leg feels better after the surgery but still stiff and a little achy. He'll let Simon drive, of course, but he enjoys being a cantankerous old man too much.

"Yes, Ma'am," Jack says with a crisp salute.

"Mmm, just how I like it," she says, leaning over to kiss him. He smiles into her mouth.

The back door slides open and Simon comes in from the deck, trying to look as if he hadn't just caught his parents mid-lip lock. Sam pulls away.

"There's coffee," she says. Simon has obviously been out for a run. He's sweaty and in a gray t-shirt and navy exercise shorts that hang down by his knees.

"Thanks," Simon says. "Gonna shower first." He disappears up the stairs.

"Do you think he's got a girlfriend?" Sam asks. Jack doesn't speculate about stuff like that, figures when Simon is ready, he'll tell them.

"Probably," Jack says.

"Hmm."

"Let him be, Carter," Jack says. "You'll never meet her if you pry."

"Hmm," Sam says again. Jack leans over and kisses her shoulder. She smiles at him.

"But what do I know?" he asks.

"Nothing," Sam says.

"Nuthin'," he agrees.

Simon drives without complaint. It's warm enough to crack the windows as they tool around town, stopping here and there to pick things up. They fill most of the time talking about Jack's knee surgery and recovery, sports, and Simon's mission to fix up the little farm. Their last stop is the liquor store to get the kegs for the party, but Jack suggests they stop for lunch first.

"Mexican," Simon says. "Hard to get that where I am."

"Your mom is always on us to go vegetarian, to go gluten free, to eat more raw foods." Jack shakes his head and Simon laughs.

"You'd eat plain white rice for a month if it made her smile, Pops," Simon says.

"Yeah, probably."

"Yeah." Simon grins.

"But since she's not here: Carnitas!"

While they eat, huge piles of food in front of them on a metal table, Simon asks after his sister.

"Does she write?" he asks.

"Daniel does," Jack says. "And he'll say 'Ellie says this' or 'Ellie wants that' but usually nothing from the source."

"She doesn't write me either," Simon says. "She still doing genetic research?"

"On one of Thor's outposts," Jack confirms. "I don't- you'll have to ask mom just what she's doing, exactly."

"Or Ellie herself," Simon says.

"If she comes."

"She'll come, dad," Simon says. Jack isn't so sure, but he has his hopes.

"Something we did scared her off good," Jack says. "You too, to an extent, but I'm never sure just what it was."

"Well," Simon says after a heavy pause, "Ell and I are different. It's like we're on a planet that only caters to the outdated model. We can survive here, but it's never... never just right."

Jack stabs his food with his plastic fork.

"I don't think it was you or mom," Simon says kindly. "I believe you did what you could do for us."

"I tried, kiddo," Jack says. "Mom too, in her way."

"I get why Ellie decided not to come back," Simon says. "It's harder for her to find peace and quiet. To me the Midwest seems quaint and quiet but she'd still hear it all."

"I suppose," Jack says. "Mom says you've turned down the last three jobs offered to you."

"I don't need government work," Simon says, a little defensively.

"Simon," Jack says. "What the hell are you doing out there? Farming? Manual labor?"

Simon says nothing to this. Just leans back in his seat and picks up his beer, looking at the bottle instead of instead of his father and then, after a minute, taking a long drink.

Jack isn't going to get an answer, that much is clear.

oooo

Cam puts on his dress blues to go through the gate to Earth and this makes Ellie roll her eyes. It's not as if she wasn't raised to respect the military, and to some extent, she does, it's just that all the pomp and circumstances makes her teeth itch.

"It's gonna be fine," Daniel says as they watch the chevrons lock into place. He can tell she's on edge. She's tired and grumpy and doesn't really want to go to Earth. She wants to fast forward through the next three days and just go back home.

"What else would it be?" she asks.

She knows that while her parents may disapprove, they will not hurt her. Their disapproval means very little from the other side of the galaxy and she doesn't care at all, she doesn't, she doesn't.

Daniel looks at her knowingly anyway.

oooo

Someone calls the house from the base when Cam comes through. It's a courtesy for two retired generals who made the program what it is today.

"And Dr. Jackson and your daughter," the Airman says. His voice drops slightly as he mentions Ellie, as if he is sharing a secret.

"Thank you," Sam says. She ends the call and sets her phone on the table. Jack and Simon are out, per her request. She doesn't care where they went, just that they got out of her hair for a couple hours. Two big, quiet men lumbering around underfoot while she tries to cook and clean and get the spare rooms ready was not gonna work.

The dryer buzzes and she stands. She wants to get the sheets on the beds before they wrinkle.

Excitement is already creeping in, though. While Simon is more like her personality-wise, it's hard not to search for herself when she looks at Ellie. Ellie looks like her, looks a little like her namesake, too. Sam misses her daughter's quiet presence in the house, her quick wit, her deep insight that wrapped its little tendrils around everything.

Sam carries the warm sheets up the stairs in her arms and drops them on the mattress. She finds the pillow cases and sets them aside, smoothing them flat along the way.

She's wrangling the last corner of the fitted sheet onto the mattress when she decides she's going to try to get Ellie, and Daniel, to stay. She'll talk to Cam, to General Marshell at the SGC. Surely they have jobs for someone like Ellie. Surely Ellie will see the sky and the trees and the mountains in the distance and will never want to leave again.

Sam spreads out the top sheet, the fabric billowing from the breeze through the open window.

oooo

Cam's car stays in Colorado, parked on base. It struggles for a minute but then the engine turns and roars to life. Ellie is crammed into the little backseat, she and Daniel's single piece of luggage partially on her lap. They didn't bring much. Her clothes don't fit well anymore and she hasn't bothered to have the Asgard computer create her comfortable maternity wear. She'll have to look at some while she is on world.

No one converses as they exit the mountain facility and head back into the civilian population.

Cam is thinking about the impending meeting with her parents. He just keeps thinking the word shitstorm over and over again. Daniel is thinking about Vala.

Stupid Earth.

They're back in town now - Cam slows for a yellow light. Ellie looks out her window and sees, strangely, her father's truck parked outside of a dive bar.

"Hey," she says. "I think dad and Simon are in that bar."

"What?" Daniel says.

"Cam, pull in there," she says. She can tell for sure Simon is in there now that they are right outside. Dad has always been harder to find in a crowd.

"Black ops," her mom used to say with a wink.

"It's 11:30 in the morning, why are they at a-" Cam starts.

"Cam," Daniel interrupts. "It's Jack."

"Mom kicked them out," Ellie says and taps the back of Daniel's seat. She can't get out until he does.

"We don't have to... I mean, we could just keep going and see them when they get home?" Cam says.

"Be brave, General," Ellie says. "Daniel, get out."

If it were after dark, they probably wouldn't have let Ellie step foot in the bar. The bartender thinks she looks like a pregnant teenager but Ellie ignores him and scans the room.

Simon?

He stands up, she sees him in the corner booth.

"Ellie?" he calls. Simon sounds pleased but unsurprised. Ellie has always been good at finding her brother, like a bloodhound sniffing out a fallen bird.

She finds herself sending him a tidal wave of emotion - it's been so long since she has seen him that it all just sort of spills out. An apology, begging him to understand, how much she has missed him, how even running away hasn't given her the peace she thought she might find. She sees him reach out a big, tan hand to steady himself on the table.

Her father sits with his back to her but he shifts in his seat and turns around. She sees his profile and then the sweeping of his gaze across her and then to Daniel and finally Cam, standing tall in his deep blue finery. It's dark in the bar and it buys Ellie a little time, as does the coat she is wearing. Simon takes big strides across the room and takes his sister into his arms.

"I'm sorry," she whispers into his neck.

"Stop apologizing," he whispers back. Years apart but just like that, they are on the same page. "What do you want me to do?"

"Help me," she says simply. "Gonna need some help."

"You got it," he says.

The real problem doesn't start until the parking lot. Daniel, Cam, and Ellie wait by the truck for Jack and Simon to settle their tab.

"He didn't realize, did he?" Cam asks.

"He did not," Daniel says.

"Simon'll tell him inside," Ellie says. "Daniel, he's probably going to try to hit you."

"Probably," Daniel says. "He's shot me for less."

They wait and then the bar door opens and Jack comes barreling out, banging his cane and moving as quickly as he is able which is faster than she might have imagined.

"Daniel! I'm going to fucking kill you!" he hollers, his face bright red. Daniel doesn't run and Ellie finds that admirable. But they aren't going to duke it out in a bar parking lot in the late morning sun. She steps in front of him.

"Daddy," she says loudly. "I am an adult - if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me."

"Ellie, move," he huffs.

"Jack," Daniel says. "I didn't hurt her or force her. We did it exactly the same way you and Sam did."

Jack's eyes widen and he raises his cane like he's going to reach right past Ellie and beat Daniel senseless.

"He means the lab!" Ellie says. Simon wisely catches the cane as it swings back and pries it from Jack's hand. "Like with me."

"But... but why?" Jack finally sputters. He's a little drunk and losing steam in the face of everyone's calm.

"For science," she says. "Just like you and mom."

"Jesus Christ, Eleanor," he says, rubbing his hand over his sweaty face. He thinks that she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about but instead he says, "What are we going to tell your mother?"

Ellie tries not to be hurt as she rides home with her father and brother in the truck's narrow backseat, but she's carrying a baby inside of her, not a bomb and she's tired of everyone overreacting.

"You love Daniel," Ellie says into the silence, wincing at how petulant she sounds. "Is it the age difference?"

"God," Jack says. "Okay, Ell, putting aside the fact that Daniel helped raise you kids and that we trusted him to look out for you, ignoringthat - you don't have a baby for a science project!"

"This baby is going to help save millions of lives," Ellie argues. "While the Asgard have made progress in sexual reproduction, over 50% of females still die in childbirth and if I can help dramatically lower that number, I'm going to!"

"It's not that it isn't a noble endeavor," Simon says diplomatically.

"I'm going to love him," Ellie says. "That's what you're all afraid of - that I won't love him but I will. I do."

"And you're just going to keep him out there?" Jack asks. "Isolated, a gazillion miles from his own kind?"

"We... I haven't... there's still time for details," she says. "And I have Daniel."

"I don't know how you convinced him to do this," Jack says. "But it couldn't have been easy."

It hadn't been.

Simon meets her eyes in the rearview mirror and then looks away as he turns onto their street.

oooo

Sam is sitting alone out on the deck. It's late and the tea in her mug has gone cold. Jack is asleep, both of her children in their beds, Daniel on her couch. She should be happy, warm and drowsy next to her husband, but she can't figure out how to make herself stand up, climb stairs, brush teeth, find rest.

She kind of wants a beer.

The sliding door opens behind her.

"I couldn't sleep," Daniel says, a lame opener for someone so proficient in the spoken word. Sam is still upset but not as much at Daniel as she thinks she should be. Ellie is her kid and she knows what her daughter is capable of. She knows Daniel, too, and knows that this wasn't his idea and to go along with it not in his nature. Not after everything with Vala.

Daniel settles into the plastic chair next to hers. "Sam," he says softly.

"I wasn't always a great mother to that girl," Sam says. "She came out so different than I expected." She taps her nails on the cool ceramic of her mug. "I wonder if I had spent more time protecting her instead of preparing her for the life I wanted for her... if this all would have turned out better."

"Better than what?" Daniel asks. "She's smart, she's pretty happy out there. She made an unorthodox decision to help the Asgard. Is it really so bad?" he asks.

"Maybe the best thing I can do is just be the mom who loves her anyway," Sam says. "What's done is done."

"She didn't want to come," Daniel says. "She never wants to talk about Earth and I understand why and her reasons are valid but... I miss it here."

"We miss you," Sam says.

They fall quiet, listen to the rustling sounds of the night at their feet.

"Once, you destroyed an Asgard ship to save the Asgard," Daniel says.

"I did it to stop the replicators," she corrects.

"You blew up a sun."

"Daniel."

"You created... whatever the hell that was to get Jack back when he was stranded," Daniel says.

"What is your point?" she demands.

"My point is that this is... this is like that, maybe," he says. "You're mad because you think she's being reckless but look at where she came from."

Sam sighs and stands up. "I'm going to bed," she says. "We have a big day tomorrow. Get some sleep."

But Daniel doesn't sleep well. He tosses and turns and then goes back out to the deck as the night just begins to make room for dawn. It's different seeing the stars through a planet's atmosphere - it's different having the stars up above him instead of on all sides.

Ellie wakes up early, too, and comes out to join him, a blanket around her shoulders and the bottom of her stomach sticking out from a too small t-shirt. She always leaves just a little space between her and Daniel. They live in tight quarters on their little station and it wouldn't do to grow tired of one another. But here, on the deck as the sky starts turning gray, she stands close enough that they brush.

Daniel swallows and sighs and then tucks her against him. It would be such a nice moment if he weren't thinking so hard. If he weren't wishing things were different, were easier, somehow.

oooo

Ellie feels like a tree in the winter - branches frozen, waiting for the thaw so she can bloom. But spring never comes, there is only ever cold and the tiny green leaves stay inside of her, furled so tightly that it hurts.

But what if blooming hurts too? Change is agony, growing a life has taught her that much. Her body shifts to accommodate the baby, skin stretching and back aching as she puts on weight. There is always the chance, also, that the baby won't bring the answers that she expects him to and then where will she be? She'll have nothing to show for her courage, only a trail she has blazed that leads to nowhere.

Her mother thinks she is not ready for parenthood but even if Sam is right, it is too late to go back now. Her mother is smart enough to know this and at least doesn't voice her opinion on what cannot be undone.

The morning of the party is a little bit of a relief. Daniel goes out early with Sam for some last minute purchases and when they come back, Daniel hands her a plastic bag with maternity underwear and a dress that will fit her.

"Thank you," Ellie says. She can tell that it was her mother's doing, not Daniel's, because it isn't exactly to her taste, but it all fits her well enough.

"You look very smart," Sam says when she comes downstairs.

"Thanks," she says.

"You can wear one of my coats," her mother says. "The teal one should close. It might be a little big in the shoulders but..."

"It'll be fine," she says.

Ellie stands inside with her family at first, greeting guests, but then she begs off, feigning tiredness. She slips through the double doors that lead to the banquet hall's kitchen. The caterers ignore her. The food is all ready, sitting on big warmers, waiting to be rolled out. She walks past the big refrigerator, down the hall and out the backdoor that has been propped open with a crate of orange tomatoes.

The rear parking lot is about half-full of junky cars that belong to the staff. Old Hondas and hatchbacks with bumper stickers for bands Ellie doesn't know or can't remember. She knows how to interact with people on Earth but now it feels like a completely different culture instead of her own. She sits down on a concrete retaining wall and takes a deep breath. She should have grabbed her mom's coat. It's chilly.

Someone comes out of the door - a caterer with a cigarette in his hand, but when he sees her hand on her stomach, he frowns and goes back in.

She kicks a pebble with her shoe and watches it bounce away from her. Inside, the baby kicks and she shifts, her butt cold against the concrete. Someone else comes to the door and she looks up, about to give permission for them to take a smoke break, but it's not staff. It's Vala.

Daniel hadn't thought that she would come. Vala has been married for almost two years now to a Congressman. She lives in D.C. and still works her mysterious government job. Ellie had seen her arrive with her older husband, a sort of paunchy man in an expensive suit with silver hair. He is handsome still and Ellie can only imagine how striking he'd been in his youth.

"Hi," Ellie says when Vala spots her and spends a few moments just staring.

"Hi," Vala says.

"Have a seat," Ellie says. It seems the kind thing to do. Vala has been struck with this terrible feeling of betrayal and inadequacy at the sight of Ellie and Ellie doesn't particularly like being the cause of that so she intends to be nice. "If you want."

Vala does. She comes and sits next to her, leaving a large space between them.

"Crowded in there," Vala says. "I wasn't going to come, but John - my husband - thought it would be a good networking opportunity."

"My dad does seem to have a lot of important friends," Ellie says.

"He does, doesn't he?" Vala says. She tucks her hands into her lap. "Didn't think Daniel would be here."

"My mother was... insistent," Ellie says. "Vala..."

"You don't have to explain," she says quickly. "I understand the things that happen when you're far away."

"It isn't his fault," Ellie says. "If that helps."

Vala doesn't know what she means but it raises an ugly ire in her all the same.

"Well he always did want your mother," she says. "I guess he thought you were close enough."

It stings. Ellie lowers her chin, tucks into herself a bit from the blow. It hurts because there's some truth to it. It hurts because she had to trick Daniel into this and she knows it and she's not proud.

"I'm sorry," Ellie says. "I'm sorry I have what you couldn't."

But she doesn't have to take it lying down.

oooo

Ellie waits for the men to leave, waits for her mother to hunker down in her garden, and then rises from bed and drifts into the shower. She expected everything to be as she left it, but the bathroom has been redecorated. The gauzy lavender shower curtain has been replaced with a practical and generic blue and instead of body washes and floral-scented shampoos and conditioners, there is a bottle of 2-in-1 Head & Shoulders and a bar of white soap.

She lathers up with it, rubbing her hands over her belly long after the bubbles have washed away.

Her mother is sitting on her bed when she comes in, wrapped in a towel.

Sam starts to apologize a few times, but ultimately says nothing. Ellie sighs and tugs the towel more tightly around her. Her hair is wet, long past her shoulders and her mother surprises them both.

"I'll braid your hair," she says.

"Okay," Ellie agrees. This, too, is surprising.

"I'll get a brush," Sam says.

In her absence, Ellie dresses. Her new stretchy underwear and an old pair of Simon's pajama pants that he'd left behind when he'd fled this life. A t-shirt that feels tight under her arms because all the give the fabric has is going to cover her stomach.

Sam comes back in and they sit cross-legged on the bed like when she was a little mother's hands are warm and she smells like damp grass and sunshine. Sam brushes out the tangles starting at the bottom.

"You have split ends," she says.

"Daniel usually cuts my hair," Ellie says. It's been awhile since he's snipped away at her ends. Her hair is longer than it has ever been.

Sam wonders if Daniel and Ellie are having sex, but she does not ask and Ellie doesn't particularly feel like reassuring her.

"Have you ever had sex with Daniel?" Ellie asks, instead.

"No," Sam says and though Ellie can tell she is surprised, the rhythm of the brush never falters.

"You wanted to, though," Ellie accuses.

"Only... in the most physical sense of it," she says. "I was always in love with Jack. Even in the beginning."

"It seems like SG-1 just loved SG-1," Ellie says.

"That happens," Sam says. "When you're on a team like that."

"Then why pick dad?" Ellie asks.

"Because," Sam says. "There's love and then there's in love and it's not the same thing."

Sam starts on the braiding.

"You think-"

"Ellie," Sam says, losing her patience and cutting her daughter off. "I already know what I think. You don't have to tell me. I'd like to know what you think, for once."

"Everyone stared at me at the party," Ellie says.

"Yes," Sam agrees.

"They think I tricked Daniel, that I trapped him," she says.

"Did you?" Sam asks.

Ellie thinks about the suggestions, the gentle nudges, the whispers in the night. How open Daniel has always been to her, how easy it is to make him think an idea was his all along. But she can't take control of him, can't unilaterally bend his will.

"I only work with what's already there," Ellie settles on.

Sam sighs, thinks Jesus Christ.

"We could have had sex," Ellie says. "I never forced him one way or the other."

The truth is, Ellie is terrified of sex, of letting another person - even Daniel - so close to her. And there's something poetic about a virgin birthing a savior. Her parents never put much stock into the bible, but Ellie understands the allure of Mary. Pure of body, pure of heart. Her intentions are pure, anyway.

Her mother is skeptical.

"What?"

"Am I happy you didn't rape Daniel? Yes. But the fact that you want a pat on the back for that, Ellie, is a little scary."

"I love Daniel," Ellie says.

Sam thinks her daughter is silly and weak and sad and it stings like a shallow cut, long and burning across her skin. Sam wraps the elastic around the end of the single brain.

"We shouldn't have come back," Ellie says.

Sam stands up and wipes her hands on her thighs.

"Honey," Sam says. "You can always come home, you know that, but Dad and I worry about you way out there all alone. And we worry about Daniel, too. And now that you've come home, it seems like we were right to be worried. You can't raise a baby for the sole purpose of fixing the Asgard and you can't isolate that baby light years away from any other humans. It's not fair."

"I can't come back," Ellie says.

Won't her mother's mind corrects, but Sam just presses her lips together and holds everything in.

oooo

Daniel comes into her bedroom late to tell her that he's staying.

They had agreed to spend three days, maybe four, and then go back but Daniel wants to stretch that time out.

"I'm not saying we don't go back, I mean, we have to go back because we have stuff there, but I think we should spend some more time here," he says. He's speaking calmly, patiently. It's like ever since they returned to this planet, he's changed back into Uncle Daniel and the man she's used to sharing her life with is fading.

"How much longer?" she asks.

"Well," he says. "You know it would be best to have the baby here."

It's hard to blindside Ellie, but Daniel has done it. She expected him to say four or five more days, maybe weeks if she really were to use her imagination, but months? Ellie is smart enough to know that when the baby comes, it will be even harder to go back.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks.

"It's not just you and me anymore," Daniel says. "We need to do what's best for this child."

"Or what my mother tells you is the best," she says.

"Stop," he says. "Think. We can't do this alone."

"I have responsibilities out there," she argues.

"Thor lets you work," Daniel says. "Come on, Ellie, Thor allows it. He's not depending on you to solve his problems."

Ellie grits her teeth. Her face feels so hot.

"Stop it," she says.

"You stop," he says. "Stop running from your life."

"You don't know anything about my life," she says.

"I know everything about it," Daniel says, exasperation creeping in. "I've known you your entire life! I gave up everything for you because I thought it might make you happy but it hasn't so it's time we try something new."

Ellie is crying. She's not really a crier by nature but she cries now, her face red and sticky, her nose running freely. She sniffs and sobs but the pressure that is usually relieved in her chest by a good cry doesn't give at all. It feels like they are breaking up, though they are not together. It feels more like she is getting dumped.

"You don't understand," she says. "I can't stay here." She means this room, this house, this town. She remembers too well the boredom, the misery. After going through the Stargate, living on a space station, playing savior to aliens, and crafting a near genetically perfect baby, how can she come back to Colorado Springs? To the parents who promised to give her everything and instead gave her just shy of enough?

"Fine," he says. "But it's a big planet and like it or not, it's yours. You need to learn to live on it."

She gets, now, what he's trying to say. If she'd just left well enough alone, she could have stayed away forever, but the baby changes the rules. The thing that is supposed to solve all the problems is the thing forcing this change. How terribly ironic.

Daniel sits next to her. He puts a hand on her knee.

"I'm not sure what made me agree to this, Ellie. The longer we're home, the more absurd it seems - but it doesn't matter. It's done. All we can do now is make better choices. Unselfish ones." Daniel squeezes her knee and lets go.

"I don't need you to be my uncle," she says. She presses her sleeves against her cheeks in an effort to mop up some of the mess. "So feel free to drop the paternal tone any time now."

Daniel bites back any number of unkind replies. Instead, he opts for honesty.

"This is confusing for me too, you know," he says.

Ellie snorts.

"I'm serious," he says. "You're the longest relationship I've ever had and that's really confusing because you're so young but you're not, in a way. And I..." He trails off. He thinks about her mother, young and inexperienced.

"Stop comparing me to her," Ellie says. "It just undoes everything good."

"I know," he says. "It's not like I mean to, it's just..."

He shakes his head. Talking isn't working, so instead he does what he has always done best. He sends her memories. Sam pregnant with Ellie, Ellie as a baby, Daniel giving Ellie a bath as a little girl, Vala's broken face as she realized the baby was lost, Vala packing and leaving, Daniel running, seeing Ellie for the first time since starting high school when she no longer looked like a little girl. Daniel holding Ellie after she got hurt while stranded off-world. Daniel watching Ellie work, picking up every nuance of Asgard technology in a matter of days. Daniel watching Ellie sleep in their shared living quarters.

She hadn't known he'd done that.

She loves Daniel. She wonders if she's capable of being in love, but she thinks Daniel is at least as close as she's ever been.

"What do we do?" she asks. He shrugs, one shoulder rising and falling limply. Eventually, she curls up on the bed and he tucks in behind her. She sleeps solidly for what feels like the first time since she got pregnant.

But she still wakes up alone.

oooo

Maybe she just cuts and runs, but when Simon suggests she comes home with him, she doesn't look back. Simon buys her ticket and doesn't complain about the cost. He changes his flight to her later one. He doesn't ask about Daniel, just books her a ticket - one way.

Before they leave, Ellie spies her father asleep in his recliner, tired out from his party. She pads quietly over to him; studies the cane propped against his chair in easy reach. She has never done this while pregnant, but she decides to risk it. She puts her hands on each knee. She takes his pain.

He sleeps through it.

Her goodbyes are curt. Her mother hugs her, pleased enough that she's staying on the planet and knowing better than to ask for more. Daniel promises to come see her before too long, and he means it. She knows he will come if she calls.

"I'll let you know," she says. Simon seems uncomfortable at the notion of anyone coming to his home. He's hiding something but she lets him keep his secret. She doesn't pry.

He carries her bag through the airport. Her state ID is expired but her military one - the one that allows her access to the SGC - gets her through security and onto the plane. It seems odd, archaic, to fly in an aircraft not even capable of interstellar travel. She's just supposed to trust it to ferry her safely to Indiana?

"Easy now," says Simon.

Ellie feels like she is pretty much the same. She looks like she could pass for a high school student in perpetuity and she feels angry over the same things - Earth, her parents, the boring and self-involved thoughts of humans everywhere.

But Simon is so different. He's no longer the lanky, oily teen who left her to Daniel's care. He has filled out, gotten strong and tan. He has cut his hair short. He's handsome, how she imagines her dad must have been a long time ago. And the turmoil she's always sensed from him - the disconnect, the anxiety, the concern has somehow settled into a calm. He seems so certain now.

"You're different," she says as the plane starts to taxi.

He gives her a side smile and says nothing.

oooo

Daniel stays with Jack and Sam. Vala returns to D.C.; Teal'c goes back through the Stargate and then Cam back to the Alpha site.

Jack is oddly energetic. He bounds up the stairs to get something and Sam watches, astonished, before hollering after him, "Careful, old man!"

Daniel is wary of Jack. He uses Sam as a buffer. Sam's not particularly thrilled with Daniel, but she's less likely to punch him in the face.

Probably, anyway.

They are going out to dinner. Sam had been planning to cook but with Jack feeling up to going, she's just as happy not to. Jack comes downstairs with his jacket in hand and doesn't even use the railing.

"What has gotten into you?" Sam asks.

"Dunno," he says. "Why? I feel fine."

Sam stares at him, waiting for him to realize that's exactly what she means. Daniel isn't sure if Jack is playing dumb or actually is dumb but the realization never comes.

"I'll drive," Jack says and puts on his jacket. They take the Prius and Daniel sits in the back. It's weird - when he'd left, Sam had still been driving that old Volvo. So much has changed in his absence. Sam has cut her hair into a bob that is more reminiscent of the style she wore when he first met her. He'd gotten used to the ponytails and french braids.

"Italian? Steaks? Burgers? Mexican?" Jack asks, scooting the seat back a little.

"Italian," Daniel says. He wants a hearty meal, to drag warm bread through pools of sauce, to eat so much garlic that his lips tingle. To drink wine and watch a single candle in the middle of a table burn. To have every thought be his own.

Daniel keeps the small talk going in the car. He asks about the SGC, about Cassandra. He listens to Sam complain about a loud-mouthed lady in her book club. Jack reads the books along with Sam but refuses to drive to the public library and sit in their gray programming room to listen to a bunch of folks sit and talk about how they completely missed the point.

The restaurant is busy and they wait about fifteen minutes. When they get seated, Daniel takes one side of the booth and Sam and Jack take the other. With the light hanging down over the table, it suddenly feels like there might be an interrogation.

"So," Jack says.

Daniel tenses. Here it comes.

"My wife tells me you're probably not completely to blame for this situation," Jack says.

Daniel relaxes but only a little. He's had similar suspicions, but he isn't going to sell Ellie out.

He knows better than to leave a teammate behind.

oooo

Ellie's feet swell and her knees ache. Simon carries both their bags and she limps through baggage claim.

"For the smart one..." Simon starts.

"Shut up."

"Should've known better," he says anyway.

"I was trying to help."

"Not your job," Simon says. "And what kind of person both wants to help and looks down their nose-"

"It's dad!" she says. "He shouldn't have to hurt all the time."

"You're the one that left," Simon reminds her.

"I left mom," she mutters. "And you left, too."

"Hmm," he says.

"Look, can we not play Simon-the-therapist-for-fucked-up-girls while still in the airport?" she says. She spots a bathroom and starts to veer toward it.

"You just went in the terminal!" he complains, but sets the bags down to wait anyway.

On the toilet, she stares at her big fat ankles while she pees. She has no idea what she's doing with this life, no idea how Indiana can be better than Colorado, better than an enormous spaceship, better than a remote outpost tucked far, far away.

Daniel used to say that better was relative, that life is not some sort of long distance marathon where happy is just there, right at the horizon. Maybe Daniel is right, but she doesn't know how to live in the moment or how that might be any easier than the way she lives now.

In Simon's truck, their bags tucked into the dusty bed, she says, "Who is Caroline?"

Simon wavers for only a moment before he says, "I think you'll like her. I know she'll like you."

Ellie finds that somewhat comforting and falls asleep for most of the ride from Indianapolis.

When she wakes up, Simon is pulling their luggage out of the truck and heading into an old, faded house. It's obviously a work in progress, but in the cool night, the windows are bright and it feels like a home. Simon walks in without unlocking the door. Ellie pads behind him.

"Hey," he calls.

From around a corner, Caroline appears. She looks mildly surprised but smiles warmly.

"You've brought a stray!" she exclaims. She and Simon share a brief kiss and then she looks Ellie up and down.

"This is my sister," Simon says.

"Yes," Caroline says to her. "I thought you might be."

Caroline wraps Ellie up in a warm, sweet smelling hug and Ellie hugs her back, too startled to do anything else. She stares at her brother over the woman's shoulder.

It's the oddest thing, but Ellie cannot hear Caroline's thoughts at all.

Simon just shrugs - playing dumb.

Mostly, Ellie is tired; mostly the silence is amazing and she settles into the spare room and sleeps through the night.

In the morning, Simon is gone and Caroline gives her a cup of decaf and pushes her into a seat at the wooden table in the kitchen.

"You seem like you're about halfway there," she comments, pushing a little jug of cream toward her.

"Almost six months," she says. "It's a boy."

"Congratulations," says Caroline. "Are you hungry?"

"Always," Ellie admits.

"I can fix breakfast," Caroline says. "Simon won't be back till supper but we have a lot to do together today so I promised him you'd be fine."

"Does Simon ever talk about me?" Ellie asks. She has to gather her information the old fashioned way and she's rusty. She just blurts the question out.

"Sometimes," Caroline says. "He said you were living out of the country and that you are very smart."

"I was," she says. "For a while."

"What did you do?"

"I'm a genetic scientist," Ellie says. "Sort of."

"Sort of?" Caroline laughs. "How are you sort of a scientist?"

"Child prodigy," she says. "The smart child of smart parents..." She stops. "Have you always lived in Indiana?"

"Always," Caroline says. "Go Hoosiers."

Ellie doesn't know what that means.

"What's a Hoosier?" she asks.

Caroline laughs her tinkly laugh rises to start frying the eggs.

oooo

Ellie sleeps for a couple days and then grows bored of the rest. Caroline gives her odd jobs to keep her busy. She snaps the ends off green beans over a colander. She sweeps the wrap around porch that always seems to get dusty at night. She opens a little can of white paint and touches up the baseboards and window frames around the house.

Caroline spends her days cleaning, cooking, and tending to the sprawling garden that grows behind the house. During the day, Simon works at the auto shop in town as a mechanic. It's owned by Caroline's brother. The two men get along well enough.

Caroline takes Ellie by the shop one morning to meet her brother, Jimmy, and see the shop. Ellie looks longingly at all the parts, the tools, the big trucks and broken down cars but Simon just shakes his head at her.

Caroline takes her next to the Salvation Army, the only thrift shop nearby.

"You'll grow out of these fast enough," Caroline had said, eyeing the small amount of clothes that Ellie had brought with her. They get some big button down shirts and a few loose dresses and some sweats. Caroline promises to take her to the department store later in the week for some real maternity clothes, things that will keep her warm as winter sets in. Next they go to the clinic for a check-up. Ellie is nervous about this but without Asgard equipment, she can't keep vitals on herself. She submits to the exam.

The nurse who examines her gives her a due date in January. It seems right enough. Ellie hadn't bothered to keep track of what day it was on Earth in space.

On the drive home, Caroline glances at her.

"You want to talk about who did this to you?" Caroline asks softly.

"I did this to me," Ellie replies a little curtly. She's not very interested in having a new maternal figure in her life. She's more interested in why Caroline's thoughts are inaccessible. "Are you sure you're from Indiana?" Ellie demands. Caroline looks surprised enough.

"As sure as one can be," she says. When they get home, Caroline suggests Ellie get some rest and Ellie doesn't argue. She climbs into her bed, burrows under the quilt. The baby moves inside of her.

Ellie's been listening hard, but the baby doesn't send her anything, either.

oooo

"You're creeping her out," Simon says.

"Well!" Ellie exclaims. "It's odd!"

They are taking a walk. She's wearing one of his coats - too long in the sleeve but it buttons. It's a slow walk in deference to her, but Ellie knows Simon does have a destination in mind.

"It's not her," Simon says. As they round a slow bend in the dirt path behind the barn, she sees a small shed come into view. "That's my workshop."

"Yes, you're quite the mechanic now," she says.

"It pays bills," he says, ignoring the jab. He opens the door. Inside is a little more complex than she expected. It looks more like her mother's lab than in the inside of an old, dusty shed.

"Oh," she says.

"It's not that you can't hear her," Simon says.

"You're blocking her?" she asks. "How?"

"Her necklace," he says. "Ell, I'm trying to figure out a way to block everyone, not just one individual at a time but..." He flops his hands around helplessly. "It's hard. I need you to look at my research."

"You did all this for me?" she asks, looking around. "Why?"

"So you could come home," he says.

oooo

Daniel buys a car and drives out. It takes several long days on the road and short nights in questionable motels but he thinks flying will send the wrong message. He doesn't want her to think he's just checking up on her, that this is temporary. No, he's coming to where Ellie is and wherever Ellie is, he'll stay.

He knows there will be problems. He's too old, they don't really trust one another and the baby will only make things more confusing, but it will be worse if he doesn't even try.

Sam had offered to make the drive with him, to take the Prius, to travel together like old times, but Daniel had declined. Said that he'd go alone.

He drives with the windows cracked until the sun goes down and it gets too cold. Fall has hit hard. Everything is brown and in the mornings, things glitter with frost but he hasn't yet encountered snow. He's on his third day driving, it's already after 10:00 now and he's yawning as he drives through inky darkness, but he wants to make it so he presses on. He's only an hour away, according to the map. His phone beeps as he changes timezones for the last time.

He has half a cup of lukewarm coffee in the cup holder but he abandons it because he doesn't want to have to stop again.

When he gets to the edge of town, the excitement at the prospect of seeing her flares up again. He hadn't thought that he would miss her, but he does. He misses her a great deal.

He drives past the dark turn off and has to make a u-turn to get back to it. It's not well marked, but he makes the turn and slows down as he drives over gravel. It's a while before he sees the house. Someone is awake - the porch light is on and a few other windows are lit despite the late hour.

He parks and pops the trunk, carries his suitcase because it won't roll over gravel. He knocks lightly on the door. A woman answers. She's tall, thin, has hair the color of maple syrup and brown eyes that remind him of Jack. She smiles at him.

"You must be Daniel. We were starting to worry," she says. "Come in."

Daniel owes Sam ten dollars. There is a woman - Simon had said nothing about it, not even when Daniel had called to tell him that he was coming.

"Uh, hello," Daniel says. "I'm sorry it's so late."

"No, no, come in, you must be so tired!" she says. Daniel steps in, looks around. Cam would love it here; it's like a Norman Rockwell painting.

"A little," he says.

"Make yourself at home," she says. She points him to a half-bath down the hall and then he finds her in the kitchen, wiping down the big wooden table. "Are you hungry?"

"No," he says. "No, I'm all right."

"Simon works early and Ellie says she's not tired, but she disappears by nine every night so I suspect she's a little more worn out than she likes to let on. I've always been a night owl."

"Me too," Daniel says. Though, there had come a point where he'd spent so much time on different planets and in space that he'd glance at his watch and the numbers had literally meant nothing to him, anymore.

"This is my first year cooking for everyone," she says. "Usually we'd go to my folks' but with Ellie and you, it seems to make more sense to have it here. I'm a little nervous, though."

"Cooking," he echos.

"I know they say the turkey is the easiest part but I'm actually not that good of a cook... I went to school for literature, of all things, and I was going to teach but then after my..."

She stops, rather abruptly.

"I'm sorry," she says. "You're tired and I don't hardly know you."

"You're worried about Thanksgiving," he says. He hadn't realized he was coming for a holiday, but it makes sense now, how they hadn't asked any questions.

"You're easy to talk to," she says.

"So they say."

"Well," she says. "There's no reason for us both to be tired. Why don't you go on upstairs? It's the third door on the right, across from the bathroom."

"I'm sorry," he says, standing. "I didn't actually catch your name."

There's a flicker of pain across her eyes and mouth, like an old wound that got kicked, but it's brief and fairly well-hidden. But she knows, clearly, that she's a secret.

"Caroline."

"Well," he says. "Caroline. I'm a fine cook and I'll be glad to help."

She smiles.

He counts doors and opens the third one. The lamp by the bed is on and Ellie is asleep with a book across her chest. He wonders what Simon and Caroline think, if Ellie has asked for this or Simon just assumed or if it's all a funny misunderstanding. But he sets his bag down all the same, opens it and pulls out his toiletry bag and his pajamas and she sleeps through it. He changes and brushes his teeth across the hall and comes back in only to turn off the lamp and carefully remove the book from the horizon of her stomach. He climbs in the bed.

She stirs just a little but never wakes.

He wonders if she thinks she's dreaming.

oooo

Simon is at work, in town. His pay from the auto shop isn't enough to live on, but the occasional government job supplements things and he works for Jimmy more as a favor to Caroline than anything else. Jimmy isn't the easiest to get along with. He's gruff and bad at communicating and has no real customer service skills to speak of, but Simon isn't much for chit chat and he doesn't mind talking to people when necessary.

Simon hasn't told Caroline everything and so far, she hasn't asked but he knows that the time for that is running short. Ellie and now Daniel... and Daniel can't help but talk about Jack and Sam all the time and then his secrets about his family and his past and everything he thought he could just leave behind will come tumbling out into the open for everyone to inspect.

Already, this morning, he'd heard Daniel comment to Caroline about her necklace.

"It's interesting," he'd said mildly.

"I know," Caroline had replied. "A gift from Simon. I like it because I've never really seen anything else like it."

"I have," Daniel had muttered.

Of course, Daniel Jackson would recognize alien technology - the unique sheen of off-world metal.

Simon wipes his hands on his dirty, oily rag and thinks about calling it a day. It's cold and so many people have left town already.

Jimmy must agree, because he waves Simon to the door.

"Will we see you for supper tomorrow?" Simon asks.

Jimmy's reply is a noncommittal grunt.

Simon stops at the mailbox and then drives up to the house. Ellie is standing on the front porch and the first flurries are just starting to fall.

"Hey," he says. She's bigger - his old coat won't close around her anymore. She looks a little worn in her oversized, borrowed, mismatched clothes. Her hair is hanging down, shaggy and in her face.

"Hey," she says. "Caroline wants to teach me to make pie crusts."

"And you've decided that freezing to death is better?" he asks.

"Daniel is hovering," she says.

"He's worried about you," Simon says. "You aren't giving him a lot to work with, little sister."

"If I weren't pregnant, he wouldn't be here," she says.

"You don't know that," Simon says. "And who cares, if it's true. He's here and you've wanted him for so long that I can't see why you're fighting it."

"I haven't... you don't... I don't want him," she says.

"Okay," he says starts shuffling through the mail. There's a crisp white envelope with a State Department seal up in the corner.

"What is it?" she asks.

"Someone has a problem," he says. "That they don't know how to fix."

"The gate?" she asks.

"Probably not," he mutters, flipping it over and peeling it open with his thumbnail. "They have mom for that."

"She said that you turn down more work that you take," Ellie says.

"Did she?"

"She thought it," Ellie corrects.

"She's right," Simon says. "I help when I can but I don't want the government thinking that they can boss me around because I'm on their payroll."

"Is it good money?" she asks.

"Depends on the problem," he says. "I don't like to say yes but they did put a new roof on this place last summer in exchange for a week of work so..." He shrugs and then hands her the envelope before he even reads it. "Maybe you should do it."

"We're not exactly interchangeable, Simon," she says.

"Eleanor," he says. "These little white envelopes come to a handful of people and then the government prays that one of them will say yes. There is no way that you're not capable of whatever they're asking for."

She reaches out hesitantly and takes the envelope from him.

"But you could always stay here and learn to make pie crusts," he says.

The screen door bangs behind him as he goes inside.

The letter doesn't say much, just offers log-in information should he (she) want to know more. She thinks about taking the long walk out to Simon's shed, but it's cold out here and the snow is starting to stick to the ground. She folds the letter and tucks it into the pocket of the coat.

It's a holiday. Thanksgiving tomorrow and the government will just shut down until Monday, anyway.

The door opens and she thinks it's Simon again, or maybe Caroline going on about her pies again, but it's neither. It's Daniel. He looks her over.

"Come inside, sweetheart," he says.

She wants to hate the nickname, but she can't. She goes in.

oooo

Sam pulls the chicken out of the oven, waving away the heat from her face. She decided to forgo the turkey this year. The two of them can't eat an entire turkey. The kids are gone, Daniel is gone, Vala is with her husband, Cam is working, and Teal'c doesn't come to Earth very often.

Sam spent the better part of her adult life, cobbling together a family that she could really love, and all she has to show for it is a chicken meant for two.

It's an unfair thought and she immediately feels guilty for having it. She has a lot to show for her years - two grown children, a husband with whom she is still desperately in love. Soon, she will have a grandchild and will once again get to hold new life, squirming and fresh in her arms.

Jack comes in, lured by the smell of fresh food. He doesn't get the chance to say anything before the phone rings.

"Hello," Jack barks. He's amiable and usually quite sweet, but he still answers the phone like a General.

It's Daniel. Sam can't hear the other side of the conversation, but she can see it in the way Jack relaxes. She busies herself with the rest of dinner - setting it out on the table.

"I'm not asking for an intelligence briefing, Daniel," she hears Jack say. "I just want to know if everyone is okay!"

Dinner is ready and while Sam would prefer not to eat with Jack on the phone, for Daniel she makes the exception. But it's Jack and Daniel and they both talk around things and when it seems like Jack is getting nowhere, Sam asks for the phone.

"Hi," she says.

"Happy Thanksgiving," Daniel says. Sam watches Jack tuck into his cooling dinner now that the phone is away from his ear.

"You too," she says. "What's new?"

"I just wanted you to know I made it, things are fine here," he says.

"And?" she asks.

"And I owe you ten bucks."

"I knew it!" she crows. "What's her name?"

"Now, now," Daniel says. "Not my place."

"How's Ellie?" Sam asks.

"Pregnant and moody," Daniel says. "But she went to the doctor out here and she says everything is okay. I think she wants to have the baby out here."

"Really?" asks Sam.

"Well, I think she wants to have it on a space station, but short of that..."

"Ah." Sam looks at her plate. "Daniel..."

"I'll call again in a couple days," Daniel says. "I promise."

He hangs up before she can argue one way or the other.

"You spend twenty years raising these babies, giving them everything you have every minute of every day and then they just decide you aren't important anymore," Sam says. "They just decide to leave you out of things."

"Honey," Jack says. "We had those babies and it was our job to raise them."

"So?" she asks.

"So that doesn't obligate them to anything. Just because we gave up things for them... they're grown ups now. They get to do as they please, just like we did."

"It doesn't seem right," Sam says.

"You did the same thing to your parents," he says.

"I was fourteen when my mother died," Sam snaps. She still remembers the birthday where she'd began to outlive her mother. She'd put on her uniform, she'd gone to work. She'd told Jack twice that everything was fine.

"We owe them, babe," Jack says, ignoring her curt tone. "Parents owe kids, not the other way around."

She hates his damn lectures.

"I don't think wanting them to acknowledge me is asking for a great deal," Sam says.

"I've heard Simon say the same thing about you," Jack says.

The words slam into her so hard her vision spirals for a moment. The truth will do that - appear out of nowhere with the weight of the world behind it.

oooo

Ellie asks Daniel if she can take his car and he can't bring himself to say no. She doesn't have a license but she'd had a few lessons before she graduated high school and how hard can it be? If she can navigate a spaceship, she can drive an Accord.

By the time she hits town, she pretty much has the hang of it. Parking is the most difficult, but she picks a space with no other cars around it and does just fine.

The local library is small and dated but it has two old computers against the west wall. They are both occupied. She signs up to use one and when one becomes free, she settles herself into the seat in front of it.

She pulls the piece of paper from her pocket and enters the login information provided. The website presents her with a series of mathematical problems. They get a little harder with each one she answers, but she works her way through them steadily enough. Raw math like this is more Simon's forte but she can do it. The last problem is a proof - she disproves it and, though the test does not call for it, submits a balanced equation of her own in its place.

A box pops up thanking her and then the website redirects her to Google. She logs off the computer, puts the sheet of paper back in her pocket and, with some effort, rises.

The librarian watches her from behind her tall desk.

"Did you find everything you needed, dear?" she asks. She thinks Ellie is an unwed (true) teenage slut (untrue).

"Yes, ma'am," she says.

"New in town?" the librarian asks.

"Just passing through," Ellie says.

Good, the librarian thinks.

oooo

Simon hears something and looks out the window.

"They're coming for you, little sister," he says. It's snowing so hard that he'd called into the shop and Jimmy wasn't there to answer. The main roads are probably passable in a good enough vehicle, but the little twisty ones that lead up to farmhouses are dangerous. Daniel and Caroline are in the kitchen, playing chess. Ellie is in the old armchair with a book in her lap.

"Well I hope they brought a laptop, because I'm not leaving this house," she says.

Simon watches the black SUV get stuck for a moment, the wheels spinning and then the back fishtailing as they lurch forward on the icy path toward the house.

"Morons," he mutters.

"Government never heard of a phone?" Ellie asks, her brows furrowed. "Or beaming technology?"

"I've made 'em a little skittish," Simon says. "Slamming all those doors in their face."

"I took their little baby test," Ellie says. "I already said yes."

Simon watches the slow progress and then finally a door opens and the first body comes out. "Air Force."

"There are lots of smart people, you know," Ellie sighs. She's regretting opening this can of worms. She should have just left well enough alone. "People already on their payroll."

"Two men and a woman," Simon reports.

"Oooh," Ellie says. "Three people."

"What are you two chattering about?" Caroline calls.

"Govvies are here," Simon says.

"What?" Daniel asks.

"It's a storm!" Caroline says over him. "You think they expect to be fed?"

"No," Ellie calls firmly.

"I'll put on fresh coffee," Caroline says anyway.

"You're not a waitress," Ellie reminds her. "You don't have to give them anything."

"Shut up," Simon says. "Stop being such a cantankerous little shit."

"I'm 8 months pregnant. Bite me," she says. Ellie can hear them climb the porch steps. She has to pee every fifteen minutes so she decides to go and let Simon deal with opening the door. Cowardly, maybe, but she thinks of it as a strategic retreat. She listens in from the behind the closed bathroom door. It's confusing to sort out who is who, but what becomes very clear, very quickly, is that they think they're here to whisk Simon away.

She looks at herself in the mirror. She is heavy and tired, but she does not look bad. If anything, the pregnancy has made her hair longer and thicker and shinier and the bone deep paleness that came from living in space has all but faded. She looks normal. Pregnant, but normal.

Everyone turns to look at her when she comes out.

"Hi," she says.

"See?" says Simon. "It wasn't me."

Ellie receives a small lecture on national security on account of logging in with information meant for Simon and she endures it silently only because the man giving it, Major Corey Singleton, has half his mind on the lecture on half his mind on how his wife is back home, almost as pregnant as Ellie herself and how he just wishes he were back home right now.

"Is it your first child?" Ellie asks when he's finished.

"Excuse me?" he asks.

"Your wife," Ellie says. "Is this her first pregnancy?"

Major Singleton stares at her, betraying nothing. Daniel clears his throat. It's a warning shot to Ellie, just grazing her bow. She understands that he means to say that if she really wants to make some money from the government today, she shouldn't scare them off.

"If they know about Simon, they know about me," Ellie says out loud to Daniel.

"Actually," says the woman, who is a good fifteen years old than her companions. Her name is Mary something, Ellie can't remember. "We're just the messengers here to get your consent and to bring you back."

"You don't know what the project is?" Simon asks.

"We have Secret clearance only," she confirms. "We're to bring Mr. Carter-O'Neill - or rather, Miss Carter-O'Neill now - back with us to be fully briefed. We're all on a need to know basis only."

"So I should shut up then," Ellie says.

"Yeah," Daniel says.

"That was a delightful speech, then, Major Singleton," Ellie says. "That little lecture from you, despite my higher clearance. Thanks for that."

"She's usually nicer," Simon says. "When she's not so pregnant."

"No she's not," Daniel chimes in.

"Well," Ellie says. "Unfortunately, I can't fly in my condition. So you'll have to send someone who knows what the actual problem is."

The Major looks grim - like a man unable to complete his mission but there is really no arguing about it so they stand.

"You all can't travel in this storm," Caroline calls from the kitchen.

"We'll be fine, ma'am," Major Singleton says. Caroline glances at Daniel and he gives a subtle nod.

When they leave, Simon looks at Ellie with a frown.

"You know who they're going to send, right?" he says.

"I can handle Rodney McKay," she says dismissively.

"No," Simon says. "He's too old and hates to travel. Unless the world is in imminent danger, he won't even leave his house."

"No," Ellie says.

"I will bet you anything, little sister, that by morning, Samantha Carter will be standing at my door." He doesn't sound particularly pleased.

"This was your idea," Ellie says. "You didn't want the work, you gave me the information to take their test."

"Yes," Simon says. "Everything that happens is someone else's fault."

"Hey," Daniel says.

"You know what is my fault? Wanting you to come home," Simon says. "I moved out here to the middle of nowhere to try to have a regular life but I just couldn't leave well enough alone."

"I don't have to stay here," Ellie says.

"Okay," Daniel says. "Okay, maybe everyone should just take a break."

But isn't that what she'd tried to do all along? Taking a break had been what getting off the planet had been all about.

"Ellie," Simon says. "I'm sorry you got saddled with the shitty superpowers, but lighten up."

And it's like Ellie gets so mad, she circles all the way back around again to calm. Her shoulders sag.

"Sure," she says and goes upstairs.

oooo

All the drama and it turns out Simon is better suited to fixing the problem anyway.

Sam does come, calling the landline and then appearing in the living room a few moments later with a flash. Caroline is upstairs, misses the excitement and when she comes down, she's shy, meeting Simon's mother and says, "I didn't hear the doorbell!" which makes everyone else look down at their feet.

You should stop lying to her, Ellie sends him, scolding, but he doesn't reply even though she knows he got the message. Simon is good at blocking her on a general level but when she wants to get through, she gets through.

"Where should we work?" Sam asks, trying not to stare at her daughter's round stomach. She's thinking about how much time she's already missed; she's thinking she's going to be scared of what comes out. That's when Ellie turns around and goes back up the stairs.

"Jesus, Sam," she hears Daniel say before Ellie slams the bedroom door closed.

Daniel comes up to console her a while later, but she doesn't need it.

Ellie is sitting in the wooden chair by the window though it's not comfortable. Her window looks out toward the little shed and she passes her time trying to imagine what Simon and her mother are doing out there. It's harder to hear across the distance - everything has been harder with the baby draining her of her energy. Maybe it's better that he helps solve the problem. Had it been theory or medical or even just plain alien, she could've cracked it, she's fairly confident. But engineering? Coming up with a mechanical solution to build a machine?

Might as well tie a carrot on a stick to dangle in front of Simon. His mind had begun formulating a solution before he'd even heard the entire problem. And in a way, she's happy for Simon. This was the sort of thing that he and their mom had always done best together. This was how they'd bonded from the start. When Sam had been around to bond with, anyway.

She'd watched Simon and Sam trudge through the soft, wet snow toward the shed. Simon had a space heater tucked under his arm.

"Want to come help make dinner?" Daniel asks, sitting on the edge of their bed.

"Not hungry," she says.

"That's not even a particularly good lie," Daniel says.

"I want to go home, but I don't know where that is," Ellie admits. "I keep thinking I'll leave, but I honestly have nowhere better to go."

"I think that's a common phenomenon," Daniel says. "I think that's one of the driving factors of people having their own children. It's instinct to try to replicate the feeling of home."

"All I'm doing is bringing someone else into the world I don't have a home for," Ellie says.

"You have a home with me," Daniel says. "We can find it. We can."

She shakes her head. "You can't live without my mom and dad and I can't live with them."

"All I'm asking for is that you figure out how to share a planet with them," Daniel says, rubbing his hands on his thighs.

"If you're looking for a subtle way to segue into telling me that my mom is staying for Christmas, consider it done," Ellie says, turning back to the window.

"I'll get Jack to fly out," Daniel says. "Ease the tension a little."

"Check with Simon," Ellie says. Daniel takes it as the dismissal it was intended to be and leaves.

oooo

"Soldiers aren't trained to grow old," Sam says, folding a basket of clean, hot towels at the kitchen table. Caroline stirs something at the stove, silent. Ellie is sitting because her feet hurt and because Simon is at work and Daniel in town and there's nothing better to do. Her mother's words are kind of a non-sequitor and Ellie looks up and squints.

It's not right, Ellie thinks. Sam sitting in a farmhouse kitchen doing a woman's work. It wasn't a life her mother ever wanted and it's not the one she wanted for Ellie but here they all are.

"What do you mean?" Caroline asks.

"I just mean," Sam says, looking at and speaking to Ellie, "When it feels like I don't know what I'm doing or that I'm holding you to some impossible standard, it's just because Jack and I honestly never thought we'd make it this far and... the hardest lesson I learned about being a parent was that being smart doesn't give you any advantage."

Ellie laughs, a little derisive snort. "It's one thing to want us to do well. You wanted us to be you."

Ellie and Simon had never wanted for anything like food or school uniforms or thick volumes of poetry or chemistry books or piano lessons. But it had always felt like they were missing something important and vital. Like they could never quite get warm enough. An unquenchable thirst.

"That isn't true," Sam says.

"Did you ever consider what it might be like once we were grown and gone?" Ellie asks.

Caroline turns off the burner and flees the kitchen. She hovers nearby, in earshot. Ellie still can't read her mind, but she can see her shadow long across the wooden floor.

"I didn't consider that you'd want to leave the galaxy to get away from me, no," Sam says quietly, calmly. She doesn't feel calm - the roiling waves of suppressed anger at this old fight again mix with Ellie's own fury. But they both stay calmly at the kitchen table.

"There was nothing for us here," Ellie says. "Parents send their kids far away to find a better life all the time. To a bigger city, to a different country, whatever."

"You weren't going off to college! You didn't get a scholarship to Juilliard or move to Paris to learn the language!" Sam says. "Jesus, Ellie, don't be so dramatic. You had everything two kids could want."

Same old fight as always.

"You never listen," Ellie says, struggling to get up. Sam watches her puff and get to her feet.

"I do listen," she says. "I do. But I think you're trying so hard to hear what I'm thinking that you don't listen to what I'm saying."

"You're saying we should've been happy," Ellie says. "But we weren't, mom."

"No one is happy!" Sam says, banging her hands down on the table so hard that a pile of towels slump over. "You get... you get moments but that's it. No one is happy all the time and I don't know why you think there are people who are just... just happy, but there aren't. I didn't teach you that, Eleanor, and I don't know who did."

Across the house, the old grandfather clock chimes the half hour. Sam rights the towels and Ellie pushes on her stomach where the baby is elbowing her or kicking her or something. Sometimes she can get it to shift but today the baby is hell bent on staying put. She sits back down.

"You know what the real irony is?" Ellie asks after a while.

"What?" Sam asks.

"You would have never had me if Thor hadn't needed help and I wouldn't have gotten pregnant if it wasn't to fix the Asgard's inability to procreate like a normal species," Ellie says.

"Why is that ironic?" Sam asks.

"Thor is the god of fertility," Ellie says.

She and her mother haven't laughed together in a long time and it feels good.

oooo

Daniel is thinking about proposing. He must know thinking about it is practically going for it where Ellie is concerned, even if he doesn't do it when Ellie is in the same room. He's thinking about it hard enough that he's basically shouting it across the old house and all she wants to do is rest.

Daniel is a good man to even consider it after what she'd done to him. Maybe she hadn't physically hurt him, maybe she hadn't actually forced him but she'd coerced him and she'd done it on purpose.

Karma is real, though, that much she knows. If she had known about pregnancy, really known, she would've thought twice about having a baby because she's swollen and miserable. She pees all the time - she'd sneezed three days ago and wet herself in the bathtub. Sitting in a pool of one's own urine really had a way of taking out someone's dignity at the knees.

When Daniel comes in for bed, she rolls over and simply says, "No, Daniel."

He doesn't respond, just smirks and climbs into bed. He shuts off the lamp.

She's too tired to argue about it, finds she's too tired to really even listen. She gives into her exhaustion, feels everyone in the house get far enough away that it's almost like silence and then, as well as she can, she drifts off to sleep.

oooo

Simon leaves to pick out a tree and comes back with a Douglas Fir and their father.

Ellie comes downstairs from her nap to see her parents hugging in the front room and Simon struggling to both hold up the tree and close the front door against the wind.

"Uh," she says. "I got it, Simon."

Simon continues with the tree and she walks right around her parents to latch the door.

Daniel and Caroline are out doing the shopping for Christmas dinner and of course, Daniel wants to look at rings. Ellie doesn't want a ring, doesn't want a wedding or a marriage. She wants the life she had, remote and sterile and predictable.

The baby kicks and she leans against the door, so weary.

"Hey jumbo," her dad says. "You're looking huge."

"Jack," Sam says and elbows her husband hard.

"What are you doing here?" Ellie says.

"It's Christmas!" he says. "We're going to be together for Christmas! Isn't that great?"

"Simon doesn't like people in his house," Ellie says and walks away, toward the kitchen.

She just can't stop being mean. Spiteful, just for the hell of it.

oooo

Usually Daniel takes her to the doctor and before that, before Daniel came to watch over her or whatever it is that he's doing, Caroline took her to the doctor, but now it's time for her appointment and Caroline is out for the day and Daniel and Jack are giggling in the living room, drunk.

"It's not even lunch," Ellie says, slipping on her coat. She's been reduced to wearing the same pair of maternity pants and an old ratty sweater because she doesn't have a lot of warm things that fit.

"It's the day after Christmas," her dad says. "I spiked the coffee!"

"I see that," Ellie says. Her father's thoughts are always kind of all over the place, but when he's drunk, he mostly just thinks about sports or having sex with Sam, so she ignores him. Daniel's drunk thoughts are a lot like his drunk talking - hilariously confusing. She snaps to get their attention. "I have to go to the doctor."

"I'll drive!" Daniel says.

"Nope," she says. "I can drive myself, I guess."

"You can't drive," Daniel says shaking his head. "Your deadbeat dad never taught you."

"Do a lot of driving on the alien outpost in another galaxy, did you?" Jack demands and then both men collapse into laughter.

"I've driven to town before," Ellie says.

"Not in the snow," Daniel gasps, holding his side.

"I'll take you."

Ellie turns around to see her mother already slipping on her coat and pulling Daniel's car keys from the hook.

"Oh," Ellie says.

"Did you forget I was here?" Sam asks.

"No, it's... okay. Thanks," she says. She turns back to the men. "Try to eat something, huh?"

They trudge out. Simon had shoveled some before he'd left for work with Caroline in the cab of the truck next to him, but it's still a treacherous drive out to the main road.

"So when are you and dad planning on going back to Colorado?" Ellie asks and then winces. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Caroline asked us to stay for New Years," Sam says. "I haven't discussed it with your father yet."

"Okay," Ellie says. She fiddles with the vent, trying to get the warm air to blow on her, but the engine isn't really hot enough, yet.

"You'd think parenthood would be easier than astrophysics," Sam says. Ellie lets her talk. Sometimes people surprise her. Sometimes what comes out of their mouths is not at all what they've been thinking. "I mean," her mother continues, "people much less intelligent than you or me have raised successful children."

"True," Ellie agrees. She believes, though, that the only reason her mother hadn't overthought every parenting decision was because her dad had been there to underthink everything.

"My mom died when I was younger than you," Sam says.

"I know, I'm named after her, I know," Ellie says.

"No, it's just... I'm not sure I know how to parent adult children, is all," Sam admits.

"What about Grandpa Jacob?" Ellie asks. "He was around, right?"

"He was a Tok'ra who only showed up when there was an emergency," Sam says.

"Oh," Ellie says. "Yeah you... you maybe had weird parenting experiences."

"I'm trying," Sam says. "I really am."

It occurs to Ellie now that maybe the only person who hasn't been putting in much of an effort lately is Ellie herself.

"I know," she says. "Thanks."

When they arrive, they sit in the car for a bit, bracing themselves for the cold walk inside. Ellie's stomach is hard and round and she rests a hand on it while she thinks.

"Simon made a necklace for Caroline that makes it so I can't hear her," Ellie says.

"He told me," Sam says.

"Could you help him?" Ellie asks. "Make something that works the other way? Works for me?"

"I'd like to try," Sam says. "But I can't do it in a shed in Indiana."

"You'd have to go back to the SGC," Ellie says.

"And you," Sam says. "And he doesn't have to, but it'd probably go faster if your brother came."

"You think he'd do it?" she asks.

"I think he'd do it for you," Sam says.

Inside, while Ellie has her ultrasound, Sam arranges for her daughter's medical records to be sent to their doctor in Colorado.

oooo

Simon and Caroline decide to fly. Ellie doesn't know how much Simon has told Caroline or whether she thinks this is a vacation or something else altogether, but Ellie is glad Simon invited Caroline all the same. Ellie likes her and Caroline deserves not to be left behind.

Ellie can't fly, not with only a few weeks until her due date, so her dad makes a phone call and the four of them, Daniel included, get beamed home. They're aboard a ship for just a moment and then in the living room where it's dark and freezing.

Sam is the first to snap out of it, moving to turn on a lamp. Jack manages to turn on the heat and Ellie does what she always does - goes to the bathroom.

She feels nervous about the baby coming but weirdly calm about the idea of having her child on Earth and maybe staying on the planet for a while. They are working toward something, now, a tangible goal and that means something.

It isn't that late in Colorado, but Ellie is tired and climbs the stairs to her room. At one point, Daniel brings her a couple slices of pizza which she eats in bed. And though Simon and Caroline aren't coming until the day after New Years and Simon's room is free, when it's time for bed, Daniel comes to sleep next to her like they've been doing all along.

Ellie thinks she might love him just for that - just for sticking with her when it feels like she's in a room without a door.

oooo

Ellie tosses and turns and wakes up to realize that though she was dreaming, it wasn't her dream. Daniel is next to her, twitchy and sweating, deep in some place that even Ellie, with all her experience of other people's minds, has no idea how to navigate. Ellie considers herself not quite human, but she realizes now that Daniel is the same. He's come and gone from this world so many times now that she wonders how much of himself he has left behind.

What is it that Daniel carries inside?

His knee jerks into her and this wakes him.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"It's okay," she says. She won't go back to sleep now. The clock by the bed says 4:52. She sits up a little, too big to breathe easy on her back. "Daniel?"

"Hmm?" he asks.

"What's dying like?"

He stills and then very deliberately reaches over and turns on the lamp.

"You have a lot to live for you know," he says after a moment.

She rolls her eyes.

"I'm not suicidal, I'm curious."

"I didn't die, exactly," he says. "I changed."

"Ascended."

"That's a loaded word, I've learned."

"But you were dreaming about it," she points out.

"Was I?" he asks, surprised. "I can never remember about it when I'm awake."

"Your dreams?" she asks.

"No," he says. "Ascension. What did you see?"

"It was... complex. Crowded and... difficult," she says. But the more she tries to talk about it, the harder it is to remember and then it's gone for her, too. "It didn't seem like a place you should work toward. It didn't seem like a good goal."

"Heaven is designed to seem like the lesser of two evils," Daniel says, with a big yawn.

"You don't believe in heaven?" she says.

"I believe you go somewhere," he says. "I believe something happens."

"I always thought the body was more mechanical than we gave it credit for. Parts wear out, things break down. Eventually everything just stops and ceases. I never found that scary." Ellie bites at her cuticle and then, abruptly, sighs.

"Sorry," he says. "I can't help it."

"I'm not my mother," she says out loud anyway.

"We're all pieces of those who came before," Daniel says.

"Shut up, Daniel, Jesus Christ," she says and gets out of bed.

"I guess you're a part of Jack, too," Daniel calls after her.

oooo

"How are you feeling, kiddo?" her dad asks. He's the first one down in the morning, but he doesn't seem at all surprised to see her camped out in the living room.

"Like I've been pregnant for my entire life," she says. "Like I'm the result of every bad choice humanity has ever made."

"Okay," Jack says. "You could probably reign the ego in a tad, but I see where you're coming from."

"Is there coffee?" she asks.

"You can have decaf," her dad says. "I will make the pot."

"Half-caf?" she asks.

"You may have decaf or you may have a cup of your mother's tea that is made entirely from dirt and sadness. Your choice," he says.

"Decaf," she says.

"A wise choice, daughter." Her dad disappears into the kitchen and she listens to him shuffling around. People tell her often and enduringly that she is like her mother, but it's Jack she'd prefer to take after, had she a choice. He's dry and easy going, smart but in an unobtrusive way. Her intelligence is something she has to carry with her, a burden that she never can set down, from which there is no relief, not ever.

Daniel would point out that this, too, is a trait she has gained from her mother. Like blue eyes or blonde hair or cheekbones that perch high on her face.

"How do you stand us?" Ellie asks a while later when her dad brings her some coffee in a delicate, lavender mug. "How do you live with us day after day after day?"

"You've never lived without you," Jack says. "I have and this is better."

"Did you miss me when I was gone?" she asks. It's a surprising notion, one she had not truly considered before. She hadn't missed anyone when she was gone except Simon and then, only a little.

"Ellie," Jack says sitting next to her, though he is careful not to upset her mug or touch her stomach. "I thought of you constantly. I never not missed you."

"What about mom?"

"Of course," he said. "You're going to know this soon enough, but when you have kids, there is nothing you wouldn't do for them. Nothing. Like, if I had to arm wrestle Teal'c for all eternity or let something bad happen to you, I would spend my forever being humiliated by him. No question."

He slurps his coffee, the wrinkles around his eyes getting deeper as he does.

"I feel like something is going to go wrong," she says. "Daddy, I'm so far along and I can't hear the baby."

"How do you know that's a bad thing?" Jack asks.

"It just feels like... feels like by this point, I should know something about him." Ellie sets her mug down, huffing a little to reach to coffee table.

"No one has ever done this before," her dad says in a soothing voice. "You can't know that."

But now, he's worried, too.

oooo

Ellie declines two marriage proposals in the last month of her pregnancy. The first, Daniel takes her to the Cliff House, one of the really fancy restaurants in town. She has to struggle to find something appropriate to wear, and even that just looks like a sack. She has to excuse herself three times to pee during dinner and the other patrons of the restaurant shoot dirty looks at her and think that she's disgraceful as she passes their tables on her way to the restroom.

Daniel offers her not an engagement ring, but a simple gold band.

"No, Daniel," she says.

The second time, is less of a new proposal and more of a request for reconsideration of the first one. They are in the car, on the way back from the realtor's office. Daniel is looking to buy - Ellie will go with him, presumably. They have several properties lined up to look at.

"I really think-" Daniel is saying but Ellie stops him.

"You don't love me," she says. "You don't."

He can't really come up with a good argument to that. Daniel cares for her, surely, and loves her in a way, but he isn't in love with her and she isn't in love with him and this is never going to end well, so why bother?

"You could wear the ring in public anyway," Daniel says, "It'd be easier on you."

It's finally a practical suggestion, so she pockets the box just to shut him up.

She fishes it out later, right before they're supposed to go to the doctor, but her hands are too swollen and the ring doesn't fit and she thinks that's just as well.

oooo

She's supposed to have the baby at the Academy hospital, but her mother suggests maybe she should have the baby on the base and for once, they are in total agreement. It's like her mom thinks something is going to go wrong, too. Ellie is so convinced of this, this looming and lurking sense of wrongness, that she's been weepy and anxious for days.

Her mother makes the call for her, arranging the change in plans easily enough. Her parents are both quite adept at tactical planning, about calling the right person to get what they want, about issuing orders in a soft tone that is hard to refuse. Retired or not, her mother is still one half of the Generals O'Neill and when she speaks, people listen. When she wants her daughter granted clearance to give birth at Cheyenne Mountain, it's arranged.

She goes to the mountain on her due date. She hasn't felt a contraction, hasn't felt much movement at all.

"Not a lot of space to move at the end," her dad says like he's suddenly some sort of expert on child birth.

"What was it like when I was born?" she asks during the short ride to the mountain.

"Tense," her dad says. Her mom is quiet in the front seat, but her thoughts are easy enough to read.

"Daniel was missing?" Ellie asks. Daniel has gone on ahead to help prepare their guest quarters.

"Daniel was always missing," Jack says.

"We lived life a lot differently after you kids were born," Sam says, finally adding to the conversation.

"Sorry." Ellie apologizes like it was a scolding.

"Don't be," Sam says. "We don't regret it."

And they don't. Ellie and her mother don't agree on much, but this is something that she can take all the way to the bank.

"When does the special OBGYN get here?" Ellie asks.

"Tomorrow," her mom says. "You still worried?"

"Yeah," Ellie says.

Conversation falters as they work through the many layers of security.

She leans against the wall of the elevator as they descend. "How is the work with Simon coming?"

Simon and Caroline had come out for New Years but had returned to Indiana soon after. They have a life out there, after all. Caroline had enjoyed the short vacation with Ellie while Simon and Sam had worked for most of the visit at the base. Now Simon and her mother do the work via video conference. Ellie imagines Simon does the work and Sam just offers suggestions, but she doesn't mention this out loud.

"It's coming," Sam says. "He basically has to turn his original idea inside out and it's more difficult when you aren't there to use as a test subject."

"He didn't use me as a test subject when I was there," she points out.

"I think he has some sort of ethical dilemma with doing kooky science experiments on his pregnant baby sister," her dad says.

"Ah," says Ellie. "Touché."

"He'll get it working," Sam says confidently. "It's what he's good at."

Ellie wonders if her parents think she's good at anything the way Simon is good at solving puzzles, but when she listens in, Sam is only thinking about Simon, her first born and only son.

oooo

Simon brings the working necklace two days after Ellie has the baby.

She's in labor for a long time and then things start to go wrong like falling snow cascading into an avalanche. His heart rate, too slow to start with, keeps dropping and eventually they decide just to cut the baby out, but when he comes out, he hasn't gotten enough oxygen and the umbilical cord has been wrapped around his neck. Every time she'd pushed, it had squeezed a little tighter.

They take him away for a while, to do some scans, and though no one is saying anything to her, she of course knows there's something wrong.

"There's something in his brain," she says, feeling exhausted and cut open, raw and bloody and wide. Daniel is unfailingly honest.

"Yes," he says. He hasn't shaved in a while and his eyes look sunken and dark.

"A tumor," she says.

"Yes," he replies. "He's too little to operate on and won't survive if we don't."

"Maybe it's supposed to be there," Ellie says. "Maybe that's part of our evolution. An extra mass."

"Maybe," Daniel says, but he thinks it unlikely.

"We need Thor," she says.

"He's been contacted. He's on his way." Daniel sits next to her on her bed. The jostling hurts her. She is used to mental anguish, but the physical pain is sharp, surprising, and exhausts her. Everyone had been called when Ellie's labor had started but now, with everyone on their way, they have very little information. Ellie has scarcely seen the baby. Daniel spends a lot of time with him, but it's hard for Ellie to leave her bed and impossible for the baby to be moved.

"Daniel," she says.

"You should go see him." And as Daniel says it, one of the nurses comes in with a wheelchair.

She looks at the chair, looks at Daniel wringing his hands, looks at the sympathetic nurse who won't look her in the eye.

"Oh," she says.

When Thor arrives, he looks at the baby and cocks his head, his eyes owlish and limitless in their darkness. For the first time, after years with the Asgard, she finds that he looks untrustworthy.

"I am truly sorry, Eleanor," Thor says. "But the human genome is no longer of use to the Asgard."

Thor is not sorry the baby cannot be saved, not sorry for Ellie's sacrifice; no, he is sorry only for his own people, which Ellie is not a part of nor will she ever be.

Ellie holds the baby for a long time, holds him until the end, holds him until he stops being a baby and starts being only weight in her arms.

Simon brings the necklace the next day and the whole world goes quiet.

oooo

No child, no partner, no research. It occurs to Ellie that this is not the life she wants, it occurs to Ellie that this is the only life she has.

And then, finally, it occurs to Ellie that she could change it.

It will probably go better if she enlists Simon's help. But before she asks him, she wants to have her footing and so she does the next best thing which is wait until the house is empty and goes to Simon's room. His bookshelf still has all of his mom's old notebooks and more importantly, his notes on her notes. While her mother always did a lot of the hard math and science leg work, Simon could make these intuitive leaps that always pushed whatever theory just that much further toward becoming a workable reality.

There's a specific formula she's looking for and it takes several tries for her to locate it. Luckily, when the others go out for food or to work or to make arrangements, she can stay home, feigning pain from her c-section. They let her get away with it - it is a flimsy excuse. Ellie heals quickly and well and that pain, the one from getting cut open, is already gone.

But the grief is slowing everything down and though her wound has healed, she still feels gutted. A heavy grief has settled over the house as well, the grief that makes just walking through a room feel like wading through molasses. Her parents try to talk about the loss constantly and Daniel is in such agony that she'd had to send him away.

He'd tried to hold her, tried to kiss her, tried to cry into her hair and she'd clammed up, pulled away.

Her dad had taken the crib apart that first night and he and Daniel had gotten into it so badly that Ellie had asked Daniel to go, just go.

He's staying on the base now.

She presses her hand into her forehead and reaches for another composition notebook. This one feels familiar, this one has a binding reinforced with duct tape and a few loose pages inside. She opens it carefully, touching the necklace at her throat.

The house is so quiet, the quiet so blissful.

She finds what she needs, closes the notebook, tucks it into her robe, and goes back to her room.

She sleeps as well as could be expected, her limbs heavy against the mattress.

oooo

It's her formula in the end. It takes her a moment to realize it, because some of the symbols are different, but the actual formula, the mathseems so familiar and then she remembers the little musty library in Indiana where she disproved the formula. Where she wrote the correct proof instead.

It turns out you can predict solar flares if only you know just how to look.

oooo

Ellie sits down to make a list, to prepare, but she realizes she only needs two things: the necklace around her throat, and her brother at the Stargate. She doesn't kid herself, Simon will be a hard sell, but she's not sure if she could do it without him. She could get to the gate, but having a formula and inputting it into the dialing computer successfully is more Simon's gift.

She ventures out of the house for the first time in weeks - she hasn't been out since she'd come home after they'd lost the baby.

She puts on one of her old outfits. The jeans are snug, but they button. She puts on a shirt and then a sweater. She shrugs into her coat and goes down the stairs, wrapping her scarf around her neck and fishing a woolen hat out of the pocket. Her parents are in the living room. Her mother had gotten her father a tablet for Christmas and he is hunched over it, squinting at what newspapers have become.

"Put on your glasses, Dad," Ellie says.

"Nah, Mom says you can just pinch it bigger or something," her dad says and looks up. "Going somewhere, kiddo?"

"Can I use the car?" she asks.

"I don't think we've shoveled," her mom says from the chair by the fire. She looks at Ellie from above the frames of her glasses, over a book. Ellie is not discouraged.

"I can shovel," she says. "It won't take long."

"I'll shovel," her dad says, tossing the tablet onto the coffee table. Her mom winces.

"No," Ellie says. "I can do it alone."

Her dad tosses her the keys to the Prius.

"Thanks," she says. It's weird. This is the most they've spoken in some time. She can't hear what they're thinking and she finds she doesn't know how to respond to what they're not saying.

"Be back before dark," her mother says as she opens the door.

"No," Ellie says and shuts it firmly behind her.

Shoveling is difficult but nice. She knows her father is watching her through the front window, mostly because she can see him standing there, turning to say something to her mother every now and then. She doesn't do the whole drive, only the space behind the car. By the time she's done, the muscles in her arms are aching and she's crying a little. It happens when she's distracted with something and not focusing on not feeling anything.

She leans the shovel against the garage door and wipes her face with her sleeve.

She drives toward downtown. Her real reason for leaving is, of course, to call Simon with some privacy but when she sees an open parking spot in front of a hair salon, she impulsively pulls into it and puts the car in park. When she walks into the salon, a bored looking woman smiles at her.

"Do you accept walk-ins?" Ellie asks.

"God, yes," she says, she says waving to the quiet salon behind her. "We had three cancellations today."

"Great," says Ellie.

A man cuts her hair, a slim, cheery young man who is probably about her age who has the most beautiful brown eyes and spiky black hair. Ellie watches him in the mirror as he slowly undoes her braid and fluffs her hair with his fingers.

"What are we doing today?" he asks, flashing a white smile.

"Cut it off," Ellie says.

"Awesome," he says.

She walks down the block after, feeling light and a little disoriented. The air is cold on the back of her neck, now pale and exposed. She walks toward the bank - it's after five now so the bank is closed but the vestibule that shelters the ATM from inclement weather remains open. She ducks in and calls Simon on her cell phone - a Christmas gift.

It's not the world's best connection, but it's still rather novel that she can have a desire to speak to her brother and simply fulfill it by calling him up. No vast distances, no biannual databurts.

"We're eating dinner," Simon says.

"Little late," she says.

"What's up, Ellie?" he asks.

"Will you come to Colorado?"

"I was just in Colorado," he says.

"Can you come back?"

"Ellie…" He sighs. "Why?"

"Because I need your help and because my damn baby died, Simon, so just please come out."

"Jesus," he says. "I know. I know he did. But why am I coming out? What are you planning?"

"Something good," she says. She hangs up. He'll come or he won't but either way, she's going to fix this.

She doesn't have to be a mind reader to know that Simon isn't going to untangle history with her. That while he hasn't always had it good, he certainly knows that he doesn't have it bad. She doesn't have to take off her necklace to know that he'll find the idea selfish and shortsighted.

It is selfish and shortsighted. She can't know for sure that the world she's trading this one in for will be any better and the likelihood that Simon would find Caroline again is low. But then again, isn't this the exact beauty of a time paradox? She's made up her mind to do it so who is to say that a future in this timeline exists anymore anyway? Maybe every Ellie in every timeline decides to take her fate into her own hands. Maybe this action is a fixed point and any new timelines that start all start from this single, unifying act.

When she gets home, her dad sees her new haircut and grins.

"Your mom used to have a haircut very similar to that," he says.

She's all the more determined now.

oooo

It goes like this. Ellie requests a research position at the SGC.

"It's not that easy, Ellie," her mother says. "I'm retired. General Marshell is in charge and while I could certainly put in a good word for you, you'll still have to apply through official channels."

"I could do that," she says.

"No," her mother says, a twinge of pity in her voice. "You'd need a college degree to at least qualify as a civilian scientist. I'm sorry, Ellie."

"I don't need a job," Ellie says. "I mean, I don't care if they pay me. I just want a little lab space, that's all."

The wrinkle between her mother's eyes gets deep with worry.

"You know you can stay with your dad and me for as long as you want," she says, reaching out and touching the sharp ends of Ellie's newly shorn hair. "But I think you probably need some sort of plan."

"I had a plan," she says curtly. "Genetics for the Asgard."

"I know," her mom says. "But now you need a new one. That one is out. You could go back to school. If you want to work for the SGC, that's the best place to start."

"I just want to do some research on an idea Simon and I have been kicking around," she says. "He's going to come back out and work with me for awhile and we need some space. Could you please ask General Marshell for that? A little space?"

"Okay," her mom says. "If I do that, will you do something for me?"

"What?"

"Talk to Daniel," she says. "He's not doing as well as you."

"If I'm at the SGC all the time, I'll have to," Ellie says. A concession she is willing to make.

oooo

General Marshell grants her lab space at the Alpha site, under the command of Cameron Mitchell. At first she balks, unsure of how this will affect her plan but Simon mentions that the Alpha's site orbit is actually more conducive to her research on accurately predicting solar flares and so she agrees. Caroline stays behind. When Ellie asks about this, Simon brushes it off and says Caroline should get used to absurd family emergencies. Ellie is grateful - out of sight, out of mind. Simon promises Ellie one week off-world, three more days back at the Mountain and then he catches his plane back the midwest.

Ten days seems like not enough time, but with Simon, it's hard to say. He's been picking up projects for the government and solving them for years - Ellie is rusty.

Her dad drives them to the SGC. Ellie slings a duffel bag over her shoulder and Simon carries his in his left hand.

"You kids sure about this?" her dad asks.

"It's just a week, " Simon says. "We're just going to do a little work for the old US Government."

"Wait, are you getting paid for this?" Ellie asks.

"I have a consultant contract," Simon says. "Went to college. Have a plan."

"You suck," she says.

Her dad reaches out and presses the emergency stop on the elevator.

"Hey!" Ellie says.

"Just for the record, I think this is a bad idea," Jack says. "I know you kids grew up here so you treat this place like your own personal airport, coming and going as you please. But you should know, the only reason that you two are going on this bonehead excursion is that your mother is humoring you and that Cameron Mitchell still fears both her and me, but definitely her more."

He restarts the elevator and the doors open.

Ellie fingers her necklace and doesn't quite know what to say.

oooo

Mostly, Ellie keeps to herself. She's good at that. Simon has a much easier relationship with Cam and they eat meals together, laughing and making jokes. Cam always tries to recruit Simon into the program and Simon always tactfully declines. He does this at one of the few meals Ellie eats with them.

"Ellie would be good, really good," Simon says, like he's trying to help. Cam chuckles uncomfortably, the lines around his eyes deep and white where his tan doesn't quite reach.

"Sure," Cam says, stabbing at his pot roast with his fork. "She would, certainly." Though he does not sound at all certain.

"Don't worry, General," she says. "That is not in my plans."

Her government issue ID badge says Eleanor Carter-O'Neill and then underneath says Applied Research. It's an appropriately vague term. She'd been careful about how she'd presented the argument and is lucky that a solar flare damaged a satellite only a few years ago. That predicting them would save millions on technology repair - that a massive enough solar flare could affect not only satellites, but technology on Earth too - that it could affect security.

That was enough for the military to sign off.

Her mother had leaned against the door jam of her bedroom as she packed for her temporary move to the Alpha site.

"You've spent the last few years studying genetics," her mother had said. "And now suddenly you're interested in solar flares?"

The urge to take off her necklace had been intense, to listen in to see if her mother was on to her plan. But Sam had never discussed her trip through time with Ellie, Simon had only told her after stumbling across it in old research.

"India is already doing advanced research on predicting them," Ellie had said. "But they don't know all that we know. I think I could make great strides." She waited a beat. "If the power grid goes down, Earth is a sitting duck. What if other species can accurately predict something like that? What if they're watching Earth and waiting?"

"I'm not saying I don't think it's valuable research or that it's not a good idea, I'm just trying to see your motivation," Sam had said.

"I've spent too many years helping another species," Ellie had said. "I guess I just think I should help my own."

Even Ellie feels a little shame at that one, especially when her mother smiles and murmurs, "That's nice," and lets her finish packing on her own.

oooo

Daniel comes through the gate two days before Simon is scheduled to head back to Indiana. He's already left the Alpha site, and they communicate now when the gate is open. Simon has written a code that will lock the Stargate out during a predicted solar flare. He's uploading it to the main dialing computer at the SGC and testing it out with their formula. No solar flare detected for test day, but they can trick the computer into that part just to see how the program will react.

And while Simon does that, Ellie sits in her little lab - not much more than a semi-permanent tent - and alters the code to lock the stargate open when a solar flare happens. To upload her formula, to send her on her way.

She's working on it when Daniel comes through the gate. She's far enough away that she doesn't witness the comings and goings. She has access to the daily schedule, who is supposed to arrive and depart and when, but of course Daniel doesn't have to make an appointment. Daniel is SG-1 and SG-1 does what they want.

The door opens and she looks up.

"Oh," she says.

"Oh," he parrots back. "Yeah."

"How are you?" she asks, wincing a little.

"Worried," he says. "Sad. Kinda pissed off."

"Ah," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Are you?" he asks. "You just disappeared."

"I know, I-"

"My son died, too," he says. He's angry, she doesn't need to read his mind to see that.

"I thought it would be easier if you had a little space from me, for a while," she says.

"Ellie, I took you across the universe. I stayed with you for years, I stayed with you through a pregnancy that you didn't even ask me if I really wanted. What makes you think I wouldn't stay with you through this?" he demands.

"I don't know," she whispers.

"Because you don't think about anyone other than yourself," he says. "I gave up my entire life for you and I'm not sure you ever really noticed."

"Daniel," she says.

"I love you, Ellie," he says. "But I wanted to come here to tell you that I'm not sure I can forgive you for this."

"I," she says. "I didn't want to lose the baby. I didn't mean for that to happen," she says.

"Not the baby," he says. "For leaving me."

She hadn't thought about it as leaving him. She hadn't ever thought of them as together. They were just side by side - in a way, Daniel took care of her, they slept in the same bed, they had - and then lost - a child, but together?

"I… may have fucked up," she says. Of course they had been together, of course, for five years but she'd never given him anything in return. Just took and took and took.

"You did," he says. "I'm moving back to Washington. I just came to say goodbye."

For a moment, she considers asking him to stay, but then realizes that it'll all be a moot point after she adjusts the timeline anyway.

"Goodbye," she says.

oooo

At the SGC it would have been difficult getting access to the dialing computer. It's not that the Alpha site isn't well guarded, there is just less personnel. Ellie's temporary gig gives her access to pretty much everything, though she's been careful to stick to her lab, her quarters, and the mess hall. Not to become a nuisance, not to get noticed by Cam who has known her for her entire life.

When she has a working prototype, she can't just walk up to a computer terminal and install the whole thing. She'll have to do it in little bits and pieces over several weeks, she'll still need an active iris code. No point going through time just go go splat on the other side.

Daniel's memory is the best on SG-1. Her father is wise and tactically inclined but basically he has swiss cheese for memory when it comes to numbers. Her mother is great with numbers, but the sheer amount in her brain might be hard to sift through. And even if Teal'c mind were accessible, Ellie could never really read him.

No, if Ellie wants a viable iris code, she'll have to retrieve it from Daniel. And since he's basically told her to go fuck herself, she's going to have to offer an apology and she's going to have to do it on Earth before he leaves Colorado. Or, she'll have to leave her morals behind.

She requests to go through the gate and Cam approves it.

"Just 24 hours," she says. "I'll be back tomorrow."

"You can stay longer," Cam says. "You haven't been home in weeks."

"No, thank you, General," she says.

Ellie leaves her necklace in her lab.

Earth is loud, disorienting, but after a few minutes, Ellie readjusts to the din and shakes it off. It's nearly one in the morning when she comes through and an airman has to drive her home. He's younger than Ellie. He's too young to have ever worked with either of her parents. He doesn't even seem nervous to be driving her anywhere. Mostly, he thinks about playing lacrosse.

The back door is unlocked and she lets herself into the quiet house.

Simon's room is cold and empty. In Ellie's room, Daniel is asleep in the bed, a packed suitcase at the foot of it. She has a pencil and a yellow square of post-it notes in the pocket of her coat.

Daniel has always been a heavy sleeper and easy for her to read, open and willing. And though it has been a while since she's used her talents so willingly instead of suppressing them, moving through Daniel's memories feels like wading through warm water.

He seems surprised to see her.

"Ellie?" he says. She can't tell where they are, but he's so young and he's looking at her like her looked at her when she was still small with white blonde hair and knobbly knees. "Honey, where's your mom?"

"She's not here," Ellie says. "She needs help."

"Okay," he says. He holds out his hand. "Let's go help her."

"We can't," Ellie says. "She's stuck."

He smiles a little. "Can we get her unstuck?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. She leans in. "She needs the iris code. The one from when I was born."

He squints and frowns and shakes his head a little. "That's not…"

"Daniel," she says. "For Sam."

In the dark, Ellie scratches the code out onto her yellow pad.

She uses her mother's cell phone charging on the kitchen counter to call a taxi and takes cash from the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator to pay for it.

Even if they do realize she was home, she'll already be long gone.

oooo

Ellie offers to help with gate maintenance and Cam agrees, just like that. She finishes uploading her program and while her mother would have caught it, no one on the Alpha site thinks to double check her work at any stage. Her program spits back a date and a time - two days from now. Ellie blinks, feels the first tendrils of regret. But regret is easy enough to squash, to set aside and put away. One only has to believe that they are doing the right thing.

The day of her departure, she hangs around in the gateroom. She has on nondescript clothing, has left her badge in her lab, and carries her necklace inside of an envelope with a little note. She's worried they'll take and not give her a chance to explain. It won't be for anything if the necklace doesn't end up around the right neck.

But in the end, she balks and panics, tosses the envelope through and stays put.

Cam grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her hard as the gate shuts down.

"What did you do?" he yells into her face.

She thinks of her son, how he started to get cold in her arms.

"I fixed things," she says.

oooo

"Welcome home, SG-39!" Her mother's voice rings warm and clear through the newly updated P.A. system. After the last gate room explosion had fried everything electronic, voices through the P.A. sounded like gravel on a cheese grater. This is a pleasant improvement. "Briefing in one hour," she says.

"Shower up," Colonel Padmore orders. Ellie pulls off her helmet, her long french braid tumbling out. Her mother, always careful not to show special treatment toward her, does give her a wink from behind the glass of the control room. Ellie rolls her eyes, hands her weapon off, and heads for the locker room.

Her mother has been threatening to retire for some time, but every time she makes a fuss about it, the president calls up and persuades her to wait just until the end of the fiscal year or just until his campaign is over or just until some other arbitrary deadline has passed. Ellie wonders if she'll stay forever.

She veers away from her teammates toward the women's showers. Her dog tags jingle as she strips down, ripping her patches off her dirty uniform and tossing the soiled clothing into the huge hamper. The tags themselves have silencers, but the pendant that she's kept on her person since birth makes noise. She hardly hears it now.

When she gets out of the shower, her mom is sitting on the shower bench, holding her SG-39 patch in her hand.

"Um," she says, wrapping her towel more tightly around her, dripping onto the concrete floor. "Hello."

"Hi, honey," she says.

"I thought we agreed you'd call me Captain on base," she says.

"Well, you're naked," Sam says. "It seems a bit much."

"This couldn't wait until the debrief?" she asks.

"This is about personal business," Sam says. "Daniel's coming into town."

"Oh," she says.

"He hasn't been feeling well. I was wondering if you'd be willing to…" Sam makes a face. "Never mind. I shouldn't have asked." She slaps her hands on her legs and stands up. "I'll let you get dressed."

"Okay," she says. She watches her mom head for the exit. "Wait."

Her mom turns to look at her.

"I'll see him. I mean, I'll see if I can help," Ellie offers. "No promises."

Helping Daniel has been her life's work. His decline in health has been steady and foregone, held at bay not by medication and doctors and new drugs and therapies but by Ellie.

"Thank you," Sam says. "He gets here in the morning."

"You want me to spend the night?" she asks. Ellie has her own apartment, closer to the base than her parent's house, but she spends enough time in her childhood bedroom still. With Simon so far, her parents like to have Ellie around.

"Sure," her mom says.

Ellie doesn't get there until after eleven. She'd had to work late and then stop by her own place to gather some things. She lets herself into her parent's house through the side door and is surprised to see her dad awake, reading by a soft lighted lamp in his easy chair. He has an ice pack on each knee.

"Hi daddy," she says, and leans down to kiss him. She reaches for his knee but he swats her hand away.

"Save it for Daniel," he says. She shrugs. If he wants to ache, that's his choice. She drops her bag in the kitchen and pulls open the refrigerator. She never has food at home - she eats on the base mostly and doesn't bother to shop except to by coffee and creamer and little packets of sweetener for the mornings. In this refrigerator, she finds neat plastic containers of leftovers - delicious things like gooey casserole, fruit salad, snow peas. She pulls out the fruit salad and eats it in the kitchen, watching the back of her father's head as he nods off in his chair.

Her mother goes to bed early if she sleeps at all. She's better, now, then when Ellie was small. Ellie used to get up in the middle of the night to get water and see her mom at the kitchen table, work spread out and her laptop screen bright, bags beneath her mother's eyes. Her mother was always fretting and worrying over Simon's behavioral issues, his depression, his reluctance to find his place in society. Ellie's necklace protected her, her parents used to tell her, that it had been a gift from some guardian angel. But Simon, apparently, hadn't had any angels watching over him.

Ellie doesn't believe in angels. She believes, now, as her parents do, that the necklace was from the Asgard. Though the race died out when she was just a toddler, the technology has Asgardian elements. Her mother likes to think of it as an apology. That the Asgard knew the epidemic that sealed their fate as a dying race was coming and that Thor felt badly about meddling with Ellie's genetics.

It's scary to think of her necklace coming from some other place.

She finishes the fruit and rinses out the tupperware before putting it into the dishwasher.

"Go to sleep, daddy," she calls before she climbs the stairs.

Simon's room is made up for Daniel with clean, folded towels on the foot of the bed.

Her room is as she left it last. She changes into some pajamas, brushes her teeth, looks at her phone for a while before she falls asleep.

oooo

Daniel's plane must've come in early because he's already there in the morning when she goes down for coffee. His hair is white now and he's leaning on a cane. He's the only one in the kitchen - she can hear the shower running which probably means that her dad is still asleep and her mom went to pick up Daniel by herself.

Ellie hesitates in the doorway but Daniel turns and sees her before she can decide if she wants to abort and go back to bed.

"Hey Pumpkin," he says. "You're up early."

"How was your flight?" she asks. Daniel hobbles over to the coffee maker and winces as he reaches up into cupboard to get her one of her mother's blue ceramic coffee mugs.

"Good," he says. "I just… you know, I'm supposed to mediate this peace summit off world and I just need…"

"Don't worry about it," she says. "I'll do what I can."

He pours her coffee and hands her the steaming mug. She raises it slightly to him and then leaves the kitchen. She doesn't drink coffee black and so she leaves her mug sitting on the table in the hall and goes back upstairs to bed.

She gets back in, under the covers, and then carefully removes her necklace and puts it in a pouch in the drawer of her bedside. She learned a long time ago that it's easier to help Daniel if she has a few hours to acclimate first. She wonders what her life would have been like if she'd just lived it all naturally. If listening to people and healing them would have been easy instead of so hard and tiring.

Her mom knocks when breakfast is ready and Ellie knows her time is up and she can't hide away any longer.

Breakfast feels solemn even though Daniel and her father banter and bicker like they've always done in an effort to fill the silence. But then breakfast is over and the dishes are done - the pans and cutting boards drying in the dish rack. They've done this enough times before that Sam and Jack don't even bother to try to go upstairs with them. They just distract Ellie.

In Simon's room, with Daniel's big suitcase on the floor by the bed, Ellie looks around while Daniel gets himself settled. She cracks the window a little to let in some air. Outside, birds trill in the trees. She takes a deep breath and fills her lung with fresh air. She gets a lot of fresh air in her line of work, but there's something about home that she's never found anywhere else.

Daniel eases himself onto the bed and unbuttons his shirt.

Downstairs, her parents are fretting. There's something that everyone isn't saying. She reaches out her little probes and finds, as usual, her mother easier to read than her father. It seems like there's something wrong past what she usually fixes inside of Daniel. She turns to look at him and he shrugs.

"I just need enough to get through this last summit and then… you know."

"Let's take a look," Ellie says. What else can she offer? If she had the ability to do more than patch him up now and again, she'd have done it.

He shrugs off his shirt and she winces at the dark bruises this reveals - big ones in the crook of each arm. He lies back on the pillows and she puts her hands on him, one on his shoulder and one right on his belly.

Her parents look up expectantly when Ellie comes down the stairs but all she can do is shake her head.

oooo

"Captain," Colonel Padmore says.

"Yes, sir?" she asks. She's in her lab but they are due to ship out in a few hours.

"The general wishes to see you in her office," he says.

"Yes, sir," she says. As she passes him he reaches out and touches her forearm.

"We're still due to ship out at 1700," he says, giving her arm a squeeze.

"I understand," she says. She's been on light duty since her time with Daniel and while her left hip still aches, she makes sure not to limp while the Colonel watches her head for the elevator.

Her mother is on the phone but waves Ellie in. She stands at attention, though her hip throbs. She'd taken too much from Daniel - she'd hoped to ease his suffering only to find that the well it came from was endless.

"At ease," her mother says. "Sit down."

She does.

"Daniel is off?" she asks.

"He left this morning," her mother says. "Now, I know you were cleared by medical, but-"

"I'm fine, mom," Ellie says. "I'm…" She falters. She has so many questions.

"Ellie?"

"Why is that Daniel is aging so much harder and faster than your or even dad who is like way older then him?" she demands. "It doesn't seem fair."

"It's not fair," Sam says. "It's not Daniel. It's us. Your father and I are aging more slowly, you know that." It's easy to forget that her parent's vitality was a gift from a long dead species. "I know you did everything you could."

"Have I?" she asks. "This doesn't seem fair, it doesn't seem right. Why would the Asgard go out of their way to help you and dad, to help me with my necklace, but not do the same for Daniel? Or Simon?"

They don't often speak to Simon - he does not often speak to them. It's a delicate balance that makes no one happy.

"The Asgard elongated our lives for their own gain," Sam says. "And your necklace… we can't know what your life would have been like had you grown up with everything in the world vying for space in your head!"

"We could've known," Ellie says. "But you and dad decided for me. You wanted me to have a normal life by taking away what was normal for me."

"Actually," her mother sighs, suddenly looking every year her age. "You decided for you."

"What?"

"You were just… you were so little when it came through, Ellie. I don't even know we would have explained it to you. It came through the gate with a note explaining it's function and how it was designed for you. At first I thought it was from me but the older you got, I realized it had been your handwriting, not mine."

"You're saying I sent the necklace back through time so I could grow up with it?" Ellie asks.

"Essentially."

"And you thought that more difficult to explain then self-destructing aliens made it for me on their deathbed because they felt guilty about manipulating my DNA for their own nefarious purposes but sent along no explanation or apology," Ellie says.

"When you put it like that…"

"I'm gonna be mad about the lying later, but don't you worry that had I grown up without it, I might be able to save Daniel now?"

"Altering the timeline is extremely illegal in any universe," Sam says. "Think about how bad it must've been for you to go to that extreme."

"What can be worse than one of your best friends dying?" Ellie asks.

"Whatever it was, you went to great lengths to make sure we'd never have to know," Sam says.

Ellie shakes her head. "Not me, exactly."

"No," she agrees. "Not you, Ellie."

Ellie fingers the necklace uneasily.

"I should have told you sooner," her mom says.

"Yes."

"I just don't want anyone to get the idea that… altering timelines is any sort of acceptable solution. You understand that, right?" her mother asks - but it's not her mother, it's the General of the SGC and Ellie once more is a soldier.

"I understand," she says.

"SG-39 ships out at 1700," she says.

"I know, I'll be there," she says.

"You're dismissed, then," Sam says. Ellie stands, but then hesitates at the door.

"I don't think I'm going to wear my necklace when I'm off duty anymore," she says. It's something she's given no conscious thought to, but as she says it, she knows it a decision that she's firm about.

Sam looks concerned and more than a little apprehensive.

"I'm not sure that's-"

"I wasn't asking permission," Ellie says. "I was letting you know as a courtesy."

She's already been dismissed so she doesn't wait around for any answer.

oooo

Back on Earth, Ellie drives herself home to her little apartment, cold and dark. She turns on her heat for the first time this season and the air that comes out of the little square vents is hot but smells like burning dust. She turns plugs in the electric tea kettle and while it heats, she picks up her phone and calls her brother.

Simon left home at 16 and comes back once every five or six years for a Christmas or Thanksgiving and vows never to return. He'd been somewhat disgusted when Ellie had gone military and she'd been disappointed when instead of using his enormous intelligence for the greater good, he took a string of odd, low paying jobs across the country and never got the hang of making friends.

He's been somewhat settled for the last couple years, working as a laborer felling trees up in Maine. He's always outdoors, travels a lot and often when she calls, it's weeks before she hears anything from him. But tonight, he answers.

"I'm ditching the necklace," she says in lieu of a greeting.

"Fucking finally," he replies.

"Did you know that it's like… from the future? That the Asgard didn't make it at all?"

"Yeah," he says. "I saw the note once."

"What did it say?" she asks.

"That your life… all our lives would be better if you could grow up normally, or some bullshit." He chuckles. "Does this feel better?"

"Better than what?" she asks.

He doesn't have an answer for that.

"I don't think the Generals are going to be very happy," she says.

"Fuck 'em," he says. Ellie winces. Simon has long since written off their parents, but it's not so easy for Ellie. She's been with them her whole life, always following their leads, their footsteps; their orders. Hell, half the time she still lives at home.

"Enough is enough, Ellie," he says, as if reading her mind.

"Yeah," she says. "Thanks."

"Let me know what crazy shit you can do now that your harness is off," Simon says.

"You could always come home, Simon," Ellie offers as she does every time they speak.

"No such thing," he says and hangs up.

After a while, she can tell that the neighbor downstairs is thinking about the fight she had with her boyfriend, the man who lives to her right is masturbating and watching some super disturbing pornography and that the person who is slowly making their way up the stairs is Daniel.

She opens the door just as he raises his hand to knock.

"Whoa," he says.

"Come on in." She thinks it odd that they returned through the gate on the same day from their various missions, but not so odd that he'd come to her for one more hit before he makes his return trip home.

He thinks, This would be easier if I just moved back to Colorado.

"Why don't you?" she asks. He looks only slightly startled but surely he has spoken to her mother and she'd told him that Ellie had become somewhat subversive since learning that Daniel would not be recovering and that it was probably about that.

Maybe it is.

"Come home to die," he says.

"Hey, at least you ushered in peace on one last squabbling, naquadah filled planet before you threw in the towel," she offers and he smirks, rolls his eyes.

"At least you know the truth," he says. "Jack seems to think that a miracle cure is just one more trip through the gate away."

"I'm not even sure a Tok'ra symbiote could save you now, Daniel. The cancer is…"

"It's everywhere," he says. "I know. I've actually… stopped my treatments."

"Why?" she asks.

"I'd rather die not puking every 20 minutes," he says.

"Well," she says. "Why don't you stay the night? I can at least help you get some sleep."

He glances at the clock on the oven and leans a little harder on his cane.

"Why is it that after all these years, we all still worry about what my parents are going to think?" she asks.

"I dunno," he says and uses his cane to ease himself down onto her sofa. "You just get used to following their lead."

"How did Simon get away?" she asks.

"He was smarter than everyone else," Daniel says. "Now, how about fixing an old man a drink."

She lets Daniel get good and toasty before helping him to her bedroom and easing him into her bed. And oh, if her parents could just see her now in the low light of her bedroom, leaning over Daniel to untuck his shirt and carefully undo the buttons.

"Remember," she whispers. "I know all your thoughts."

"I'm an old sick man, Ellie," he says. "Thoughts are all I have left."

She leans down and gives him a soft kiss.

"I'll take what I can," she promises.

After, when he's dozing peacefully and she's next to him, sweating through the achy pains, he wakes up enough just to reach over and take her hand.

"Never thought it'd be you and me at the end of the world, kiddo," he says, slurring slightly.

She barks out a little laugh. It's funny how things work out.

"I love you, too, old man," she says and squeezes his hand.

He sleeps heavily through the night but she stays awake. For the first time in a long time, she feels like she has a life ahead of her that she can control. She can feel what she wants, she can hear everything around her, she can live her life as her life was meant to be lived.

Daniel snores and shifts in his sleep.

She can live her life, but she'll have to do it without Daniel, though. And Simon is long gone. Her mom is married to her job and where her mom goes, her dad will always, always follow.

Here she is, alive and alone.

But how alone can she be, really, with the whole planet in her head?

She pushes her nose into Daniel's bare shoulder and breathes deep, breathes long, breathes hard.


End file.
